


His Reassuring Visions Were the Pillars of Your Faith

by Alcoholic_kangaroo



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Grooming, M/M, Pedophilia, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:34:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23078689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alcoholic_kangaroo/pseuds/Alcoholic_kangaroo
Summary: Years after L's death, Near looks back at his relationship with a clearer vision as he accepts that he was groomed by somebody he admired and loved.
Relationships: L/Near | Nate River
Comments: 68
Kudos: 41
Collections: All Over The MAP





	1. Chapter 1

L Lawliet had been the greatest detective who had ever lived. He had also been a bewildering genius, an eccentric billionaire, an extraordinary tennis player, and an accomplished martial artist.

Most people only knew a few of these things.

Everyone on the planet knew, knows, his name, as most believe he still lives. For a time, his name had been on the tongue of the entire world. Partly. Few people in that world had known what L looked like let alone his full name.

Near had been one of those few. So had Mello but L had never told Mello to call him by his first name when they were alone together. Ryuzaki, maybe, or some other name he came up with on the fly of the moment - once he had told everyone on a field trip to a local museum to refer to him as Luna Lovegood if anyone asked. LL. L always did enjoy alliteration.

Everyone had assumed L had been a genius. How could somebody with such supernatural deductive reasoning not have been a genius? Others guessed at his wealth. Magazines, journals, books - experts in their fields - attempted to approximate both L’s IQ and his net worth. He had made the top billionaire list year after year, and even continues to do so long after his death, despite there being no solid numbers without access to L’s medical charts or his bank statements.

Near can not only tell you what L’s exact IQ had been (just a scant five points below Near’s own) but the routing and account numbers of all of L’s bank accounts as well as the funds contained within them at the time of his death. They had, of course, been emptied and closed years ago, the funds transferred to Near’s own accounts. Eventually. L had not had the chance to declare Near as his choice so first they had gone into a general trust fund for Wammy’s House, the world’s suddenly most prosperous orphanage. Roger had refused to sign over the funds until Near was of age, claiming it would seem suspicious for a young orphan to come into such billions, but by the time Near turned eighteen the interest had accumulated enough to buy a handful of small cities several times over. Until then he had been supported fine by his own small trust fund that L had set aside for him personally. 

"Just in case," he had explained at the time, handing Near the portfolio of papers over a steaming tea set. "If something were to suddenly happen to us all and Wammy's House were closed, this will get you through any tough times that may come."

Roger had never known about his secret bank account.

Only the closest to L knew that he had played tennis or took capoeira lessons. That isn’t to say nobody had seen him play - they just hadn’t realized this strange, hunchbacked man was also the mysterious L. Most knew him as either a sportsman or a detective, not as both. Still, it must have come as a surprise, to onlookers, the way he was able to move with such grace and assurance when at times it seemed like he could barely walk straight.

Near had known him as both an intellectual and physical legend. He used to gaze at the gold trophies in L’s private quarters at Wammy House; on display in a glass case but dusty, as if they had been nothing but knickknacks picked up at some dollar store. L never talked about them and Near never asked about them, but he knew how to read and could figure it out on his own. It was no surprise to Near that L was physically adept on a court, he knew the different ways his body could move, the way the muscles could become fluid and powerful like an ocean swell. Still, the dust on the trophies spoke of their age. L must have been a teenager when he won the award and they had probably sat in the same spot for years, unmoved, accumulating particles from the air.

Nobody, not even Watari, had been allowed inside those rooms.

But Near had not just been allowed inside, he had been invited, cajoled, at times carried through those doors.

L Lawliet had been the world’s greatest detective, a genius, a billionaire to many; a tennis player, a martial artist, an eccentric sugar-consuming weirdo who never wore shoes and slept too little to few.

And to one, L Lawliet had been a manipulative and abusive pedophile.

Near was that one.

Near was the only one.

At least, that’s what L had told him. But it may be very possible that L had lied to him.

Lying would not have been outside L’s sphere of possibility. L Lawliet had not been a good person. Good people do not have sex with pre-teen boys.

The subject had only come up once. L had spent an afternoon alone with Mello, Near left to his own devices as he sat outside the room where the two had been, pretending to be absorbed in a puzzle but really just listening for any tell-tale signs of what the two may be doing behind the closed doors of the library that day. He hadn’t heard anything particularly incriminating - no moans or heavy breathing or thuds. Just the quiet voices of two people deep in discussion. But what if L had told Mello to be quiet so nobody would hear them just as he had told Near to be so when they had fooled around in that same room?

Part of his mind told him that very idea was laughable. Mello was far too loud and always failed at containing himself. He would never be able to bite his lip and breath through his nose and keep in the moans that wanted to spill out as L licked at his penis like it was a new favorite candy.

The other part told him he wasn’t special and there was no reason to believe L would insist on monogamy in this...whatever it was they had going on. Relationship? Something about that word didn’t fit right with Near.

Near had tried to hide his feelings about the entire situation later that night, assuming his normal quiet nature would go overlooked by his mentor, but L had noticed something - his body language perhaps - and inquired about his feelings.

“I just wonder if you are giving Mello that same sort of special lessons you are giving me?” Near admitted, taking care to hide his feelings on the matter to the best of his ability. Though not enough apparently because L laughed and smiled and collected him in his arms.

“My little lamb,” the detective had chuckled, nuzzling his face into the boy’s snow curls. “Am I catching a hint of jealousy in your voice?”

“Not at all,” Near dismissed quickly. “I just wished to know if I should hear Mello taunting of it soon.”

“Of course not,” L assured him then. He swayed with him, Near pressed close to his chest. He was warm and smelled of strawberries. “You are my one and only, Near. You always have been and always will be.”

But was he lying?

There is no way to know now. L is dead. Watari is dead. Mello is dead. Matt is dead. It could be possible that Roger may have known about any of L’s other indiscretions, but he had seemed utterly oblivious to Near’s own predicament, so it seems unlikely. Besides, with A and BB, already dead and gone, L had only spent any alone time with him and Mello at Wammy's back then.

It seems unfair to Near that he is alive, and they are not. It used to be something he accepted with a cold sense of futility. Mello and Matt were killed by their own recklessness. A had died because of his own weak mind. BB was murdered by Kira because he had been a colossal failure.

Only as the years went on, as Near began to examine his childhood from a more removed position, did he begin to realize how truly screwed up it had been. Not just his relationship with L but everything about Wammy House. They had been children, not protagonists in some Orson Scott Card novel.

“You’re not like any other child,” L used to tell him. “What we’re doing is not wrong because you are much wiser and more mature than other boys your age.”

Near had accepted this as fact. He had heard this his entire life. He had lagged physically behind everyone else, not even beginning to show interest in the concept of walking until he was nearly two, but mentally he had always been far ahead.

There had never been anything before orphanages with him but there had been a time after. When he was five, he had been taken in by a couple, Near believes it had been a foster family, and they had given him full reign of the house. Near had returned this favor by stripping six bookshelves of all their books and constructing a perfect replica of the Louvre in the middle of the living room while the rest of the family had been asleep. Shortly after that he had been returned to the orphanage.

To this day, he is unsure why the family had decided they didn’t want him. Maybe they just didn’t like children making messes of their bookshelves.

Within a matter of weeks, L had appeared. There hadn’t been a time before orphanages but there had been a time before L. Near would love to say that the first glimpse of his future mentor had been like a prophesy manifested but that would be a lie. He was just a dirty looking teenager in jeans and grungy sneakers and Near had just assumed he was a new orphan like himself.

He was half right, anyway, L was a teenager and he was an orphan as well, but he was not new to the home. He had come looking for Near specifically. He had crouched before him, in that position that had been so familiar to the man that the shape was all but blazoned into the inside of Near’s eyelids, and had asked Near a series of questions. Then he had given him his first puzzle.

It wasn’t a jigsaw puzzle. Until that point, Near had thought that all puzzles were jigsaw puzzles. No, it had been a box puzzle. One with lots of mechanisms - things to turn and things to pull and things to rotate. L watched him the entire time, perched on the floor beside him like some strange bird, yet somehow being stared at so closely had not made Near feel uncomfortable. The fact that somebody so much older than him would willing sit on the dirty floor with him had in itself been somewhat astonishing. Near finished the puzzle quickly and then looked quizzically at the small brown lump he found in the middle.

“What is this?” he asked, holding it in his hand. It seemed giant at the time but probably only because Near has been so very, very small.

“It’s a chocolate.” L had spoken very matter of fact. Near looked him, still somewhat confused by who this person is and why he was here. “Your reward, for completing the puzzle.”

“I thought the puzzle was the reward,” he confessed because Near had been used to toys being used as rewards for good behavior and having them taken away for bad. Bad usually had something to do with refusing to play with the other children.

“Ah, did you enjoy completing the puzzle just for the sake of it?” There had been a strange little turn in L’s mannerisms then and it had occurred to Near that something about his voice was off. He didn’t know at the time that L had just a slight accent, a strange melting of different languages and dialect that had been unique to just him. L was good at mimicking other accents but he did sometimes let it slip, when he was off his guard.

“It was too easy,” Near had decided after a long pause. That had not been a yes or no answer, but he felt like if he said yes then L would be disappointed and if he said no then L would also be disappointed.

“There was a 78% chance you were going to say that. Here, try this one.” A flash of tangled metal appeared in the palm of the teenager’s hand. His hands were pale but not as pale as Near’s. He wondered why the older boy didn’t say anything about his white hair. Everybody always asked about his white hair. Now, of course, Near knows that albinism is not that unique and L had probably been aware of his condition before visiting. Why else would such a small child have not been adopted already if not for some sort of...defect.

L watched Near complete three more puzzles that day. Each was harder than the last and the final one was another wooden box. This one took much longer than the first and Near turned it around, trying to figure it out in his mind. L had watched him then, thumb to his mouth, eyes wide and sparkling with humor. What if Near had asked for a hint that day? Would that had been an admittance of defeat? Would he have moved on, leaving Near alone in that unstaffed, underfunded orphanage?

“I cannot tell if you’re one of the children of the damned or if you’re attempting to call forth the Cenobites,” L had commented after a minute.

“What is a Cenobite?” Near asked and suddenly his hands were moving on his own and mechanisms were moving. Everything snapped into place as if Near had completed this same puzzle a hundred times before.

“A type of monster,” L had explained and though Near had not realized it at the time, L had been talking to distract him. Not to cause Near to lose the challenge but to help him win. Near worked well on intuition, when his hands and his mind were separate. “Are you scared of monsters?”

“Monsters are not real,” Near had responded at the time, mostly mimicking words of the caregivers he had heard, but he had been given no evidence that the reverse was true, so it seemed correct.

“That depends on your definition of monster. Ah, you’ve finished. Good job, little one, I assume you don’t want that chocolate? Do you mind if I…”

Near had enjoyed giving L the chocolate that day. Seeing him excited over it had been better than eating it himself. He didn’t dislike the confectionary, but he had always preferred hard candy over chocolate sweets, and he always, from that day forward, preferred seeing L happy over a momentary sweetness on his tongue.

Before the sun had set that same day, L and the older man who had accompanied him, he had been going by Quillish Wammy that day, had removed him from the premises of the place Near had called home for the majority of his young life. They must have had some sort of connections, knowing what Near knows now about orphans and bureaucracy, but then how had they even located him in that building unless somebody there had reached out to them, eager to dispose of the strange young boy?

“You must understand,” L had explained patiently to him from the backseat of the car, which really had been a limo. Near had never been in anything so extravagant but all he had really wanted at that moment was another puzzle to work on. He bit at his nail instead, his hands feeling empty, his mind going blank. “You are not being adopted. You are going to another orphanage but a better one. More of a boarding school than an orphanage, except for the fact all the other students also have no parents.”

“Will you be there?” The words escaped before Near even thought about them and again he wished for something to do with his hands. Then there was something suddenly because L took a pair of dice from his pocket and handed them to Near. He held them, jiggling them in his hand, the clank of plastic on plastic soothing his frayed young nerves.

“For a few days,” L had explained. Near watched him searching through his pocket, perhaps for more dice, but came out empty handed. “I’m sorry, I swore I had a pack of matches as well but I must have dropped them. Anyway, I still live there but I’m gone a lot of the time. You’ll make friends with the other children.”

L had been wrong about that. Near wishes he was alive now just so he could tease him about the fact. Lightly. Playfully.

Maybe.

Near doesn’t know if he could be that way around L now. What would they be, today, if L were still alive? Near is approaching thirty and L would already be past forty. Not such a big age gap. Not really.

Different when one of you is nine and one of you is twenty-one.

That was the age Near had been the first time L had touched him.

“Near, my little lamb, don’t tremble so. You’d think I were hurting you, the way you’re shaking.”

He hadn’t hurt him. That isn’t to say whatever they did never hurt. But that first time it had been painless.

“Didn’t you miss me?” L had asked just a few hours earlier, playfully, always playfully, as if he ever had expected Near to answer in the negative. “You didn’t even come to greet me with the other children.”

“There are too many of them now,” Near had replied, a shrug of faux nonchalance in his posture. It was like their first meeting all over again except Near was taller and L was more teasing. “What’s the point of standing behind a group of children all taller than me and hoping you can see me?”

“I can always see you,” L assured him. “You glow so, I could see you in a pitch-black room.” Back then, Near had thought that had been a slight to his paleness. Now he realizes that had been an awkward attempt towards romance from the man.

“You could have asked to see me," he had responded, annoyed by the imaginary slight.

“I did ask to see you,” L reminded him, smiling. Then he had leaned forward and pressed his nose against Near’s temple and Near couldn’t see the smile, but he could feel it. “My little lamb, when have I ever come into this building and not asked to see you?”

“You didn’t ask,” Near insisted, but the feeling of L’s breath on his scalp had sent goosebumps down his arms. He had been glad, then, for the long sleeves that hid them so well. Though now he knows that L would probably have enjoyed seeing them. “Not until after dinner. You kept me waiting all day.”

"I was busy until after dinner,” L attempted to defend himself. He pulled away from Near, just a bit, in case anybody came in to check on them and had second thoughts perhaps. But one hand rested on Near’s back still.

“With the other children,” Near had insisted, hating that even that single hand on his back kept the goosebumps from subsiding. He had only been a child then, what could he have known? What could he have done? For a long time Near had mulled over this scene, hating himself for years before finally attempting to turn that hatred to L, the true villain in this story.

Except he could never hate L. Not truly.

“The other children get me until dinner,” L had agreed. He had been warm at Near’s side. Leg pressed against leg. Near had recently began to adopt a somewhat similar posture to L’s own, though only half so, but even with his knee pulled up to his chin his leg was much shorter than L’s and they could not meet knee to knee. “But they have to share me, you get me to yourself.”

“Only for a couple hours,” Near reminded him and then he had looked up at the library clock, checking the time for though he was acting petulant he did not wish to waste his time with the older man. He did not wish to use up more than twenty-five percent of their time making L apologize to him. “Then you tell me I must go to bed and you go to your rooms.”

“Because you were a small child then,” L explained to him and something in his voice had sounded teasing once more. Even now, after all these years, Near recalls the tightness in his throat that day at the idea of his mentor taunting him for his own amusement. It had not been as bad as he had been with Mello. It would have been much worse to be scolded or told to try harder. But teasing? That had felt so insulting to Near at that age, when he hadn’t realized what such teasing had meant. What L’s playfulness had meant. Even how special it had been to have been witness to it. “But you have had a birthday since then and I think perhaps you are old enough to be treated like a young adult now.”

“No bedtime?” Near asked, tilting his head just a bit. He didn’t look at L, it was more like he was cocking his head as if he were a dog listening for a sound on the breeze.

“We all have bedtimes,” L had explained, then he was standing up. L had not been the tallest man out there, but he was taller than Near and when he stood, as Near still crouched on the floor, it had felt like kneeling before a larger than life giant. “Let’s gather up your toys.”

“Already? It’s not even seven,” Near pointed out, hating, absolutely hating, how small he felt then. When L was next to him on the floor he felt like an equal. When he stood beside him, he just felt like another adult.

“It’s cold in here,” L complained. Near had watched out of the corner of his eye as L lifted one of his feet and rubbed it against the other, as if trying to warm them. “It’s November and the floors are hard and cold like ice. I do not wish to stay here any longer.”

Near had expected L to lead him to his own bedroom then, tuck him in and call it an early night, but he surprised him by gathering both Near and his toys in his arms and carrying them together as one bundle to the far side of the orphanage. The very far side. The absolute end of the orphanage, past the kitchen and the dining area to the small set of rooms furthest from the rest of the building that L called his quarters.

“I like to be near the cakes,” he had explained to Near once, when he had asked why he had chosen that spot, though as an adult Near had come to suspect it had probably been more about the need for privacy. After dinner was served and dishes done there had never been a need for anybody to be anywhere in that vicinity of the building. The area was as empty as a ghost town

Before that night, Near had never heard of anybody else having entered L’s rooms since it had first been set up. And it looked like nobody else had been inside. Dirty clothes covered the floor in heaps. Dishes were stacked all over a messy looking coffee table. The bed was unmade. But the blankets had smelled clean when L had laid Near on the cool sheets.

“You can play with your toys here, correct?”

“I can do that,” he had agreed, glad that he had brought robots and not dominoes to the library. And L had been right, the bed had been warmer and softer and nicer to play on. And they had continued to talk for a long time after, L asking Near questions and offering up information on his own status. He was only home for a couple days, but he would be back next month to spend the holidays with them so Near shouldn’t be sad even though Near was absolutely sure he had hidden any such negative emotions from L’s sight.

Except when 8:30 hit, as usual, L told him it was time for him to get to bed.

“But you said I should be allowed to be treated as a young adult.”

"Adults still sleep, Near, despite those who claim otherwise. Besides, I am tired. I had a very long plane ride today and I am suffering from jetlag.”

Near had begun to gather up his toys then and the bed moved as L stood up. That had not seemed unusual until Near had heard the thump of the man’s baggy jeans dropping and when he looked up L had been naked, only his shirt, caught around his head as he attempted to pull it off, remaining. But then that joined the pile on the floor and Near had been staring at L’s lank form, fully exposed. It wasn’t that he hadn’t been aware that men had hair down there, but he had never seen it and it was as messy and erratic as the hair on top of L’s head.

“Let’s put them right here,” L had said, taking the toys from Near’s arms. He deposited them on a chair beside the bed then turned back to Near. “Okay, time to get undressed, little one. I know you are already wearing pajamas, but you have worn those all day and they’ll get my bed dirty.”

It was then that Near had become aware of the fact that L wished him to share the bed with him. Yet somehow, he still had not quite understood what L had been asking from him and had not moved to remove his own clothes until L approached him and began to do it for him.

“Near, my little lamb,” the man had smiled. “Always with so many buttons. How much work is this for you every day? Does anybody else undress you when I am not here to do so?”

Of course, L has been undressing Near when putting him to bed for years but usually they were in Near’s own bedroom with a fresh set of pajamas ready to go. This was different.

“I don’t have anything to change into,” he pointed out.

“Nobody will bother us here,” L replied, and looking back at it now Near can see that the man had been redirecting the question. “It’s okay for you to sleep in your underwear for just one night. Next time we will make sure to bring an extra pair of pajamas for you.”

“Will there be a next time?” Near had asked and he wonders if his voice had been as small and quiet as he remembers it sounding in that big empty room that day.

“There will always be a next time,” L had responded and there had been teasing then. Just something so warm and soft that Near had for some reason felt like crying.

But that had been a lie. Eventually there had not been a next time and the only place L had slept had been in a coffin in Japan. Far, far away from the haven the two of them had first set up together in that room.

After that night they never had to make sure to bring an extra pair of pajamas. L stocked an entire drawer of his dresser full of them. Identical. White. Pristine. Pajamas that nobody would distinguish from one another. Ones that could easily be switched out for a fresh pair when torn or stained throughout the day.

Before L, Near had never dressed all in white. Such a feat would have been suicide at the first orphanage with the messy children covered in jam and paint. He had dressed plainly, as all the children in the orphanage had, in browns and olive greens and maroon.

Near had been so small back then. He had been five, but he had been as short as a three-year-old. Too small to fit in the colorful, trendy pajamas of any of the other kids at Wammy’s House, despite how much he longed to when he saw them. There had never been such clothes at his old home. And even then, the other orphanage had not allowed him to bring any extra clothing that day. “Government property, I’m afraid.”

Near nearly had to sleep in his uncomfortable uniform that night, until L had come up with an idea. “Stay with Watari, I will be right back.”

It had felt like L had been gone a long time, but it probably was only about ten minutes. Watari sat in a chair before a fire and Near played with some blocks some other child had left on the floor. The fire had felt good against his skin. He had never sat before a fireplace before. When L returned, he was holding a pair of small white pajamas.

“I took them from one of the girl’s dolls,” he had explained, sounding absolutely delighted with himself. “I believe it is part of a tie dye art kit, but they have yet to tie or dye.”

They had fit Near perfectly. L had been delighted.

“I was afraid that would have been too much white,” he had explained as he tucked Near into his new bed. It had seemed very large at the time as all the beds in the orphanage were the same size. “But I must say, those pajamas seem like they were just made for you. I may have to hide you away from Global or she might try to claim you as her new doll.”

“Global?” Near had asked, confused. “What kind of name is Global?”

“A pseudonym,” L had explained, giving the blankets a last pat. He sat back then, a serious expression taking over his face. “You must never tell anybody in this building your real name, Nate. If somebody knows your real name, then they can use it against you.”

“Is your real name not Ryuzaki then?” Near had asked, feeling lied to, betrayed. He wanted to sit up now, to touch something, but L had tucked him in so tight he felt as stuck as if there has been glue smeared inside the quilts.

“I’m afraid not, little lamb,” L had then reached out to touch Near’s hair, lightly stroking one of his curls. It felt nice and the panic in Near’s throat had begun to relax. “But I will tell you my real name if you keep it a secret. Do not tell anyone, not even anybody else in this school. My real name is L. L Lawliet.”

“L.” Near had tested the sound on his tongue. “But here I should call you Ryuzaki?”

“It would be for the best,” L agreed. “But when it’s just me and you, like this, you can call me L. I would prefer if you did."

“And what will you call me?” Near asked, hoping he would not be given just a letter or something as absurd as Global. He was a boy, not a type of map.

“You, little lamb,” L announced, drawing out the suspense with a well-timed kiss to Near’s forehead. “Will be Near.”

“Near?” He didn’t feel like a Near but maybe anything besides Nate would feel strange for a while. At least it began with N. He wondered if Global’s name was something like Gabrielle or Gypsy.

“Yes,” L confirmed, still touching the white curls. “Near. My little Near. Because I will always want you near to me.”


	2. Chapter 2

Stephen Gevanni was in no way similar to L. 

When he had first accepted the older man into the SPK, there had been no immediate red flags on Near’s part. No warning signal going off in his brain. No flashing code reds. Nothing that had given Near a sense of deep foreboding.

Honestly, Near is somewhat disappointed in himself for that. He is usually a very good judge of character.

Yes, both Gevanni and L had been blessed with a head of thick black hair and they were both noticeably intelligent but Gevanni had been classically handsome and competent while L had been bizarrely so. 

Gevanni had also never attempted to exert any level of control over Near. He had never talked down to him. Never treated him like a child. And Near appreciated that about him. Even Rester, on occasion, forgot that Near was older than he looked back then. Not now, of course, they have been working together for so many years that it would be foolish for Rester to treat him like a child, but back then? 

Near had been used to it. 

And sometimes the line is too close to distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate. Near knows this. How could he blame Rester for slipping on occasion as he was sent on errands to pick up the newest toys at Near’s request or when he was told to gather up the old ones and pack them away in Near’s toybox.

He is very aware of the fact that most eighteen-year-olds, let alone twenty-nine-year-olds, do not have toyboxes.

But Gevanni had been different. He had been relatively young himself, inexperienced in some regards, and he had accepted Near as his superior. He didn’t feel the need to coddle him, like Rester sometimes did, but actually sought Near’s guidance and reassurance.

It had not been until after it was all finished, after Kira was dead, bagged, and buried in a nameless plot, that Gevanni had finally made his feelings aware to Near.

“Sometimes you can be so cruel.”

They had been alone that night. Rester and Lidner retired for the evening to their own homes. Gevanni on duty with a gun and some cameras, at Near’s side. Playing the bodyguard. He wasn’t even supposed to be in Near’s room by that hour. He knew Near preferred to be alone in the evening. He knew it was his job to guard the door from the adjoining room and be there if Near called for him but to not interrupt him.

Yet there he had been, in the doorway, a black profile with the too-bright light shining behind him. Memories of another such figure still fresh in Near’s mind. His shadow long and washing over Near’s own form. Interrupting Near’s peaceful silence. 

All he had wanted to do was play with the paper cutting kit Rester had picked up for him that day. He just wanted to cut out elaborate scenes in shades of pastel with a delicately pointed pair of scissors. And then Gevanni had come. 

“I have no idea of what you speak of,” he had responded, both truthfully and non-truthfully. Truthfully because he knew he was capable of being and often was cruel to Gevanni. Non-truthfully because he was unsure of exactly which instance the other man was referring to this particular evening.

“The way you taunt me,” Gevanni had explained, and there had been something dark and sweet in his voice that night, like cheap fortified wine, and Near had suspected maybe he had been drinking it again as he sometimes did when he thought Near was unaware. As if Near was ever unaware of anything that happened in this building. “ You know I would do anything for you, anything, but I hesitate for a moment, just a moment, because of fear for my own life, and you turn to Rester instead. You don’t even care if I live or die do you?”

“I care about the lives of all of my agents,” Near had eluded the question. The entire situation had been becoming increasingly uncomfortable and he concentrated at keeping his eyes on his work, on the angles and creases of the peach paper in his hands.

“You don’t even want to look at me,” Gevanni said with pain in his voice. Near was not used to dealing with such open displays of emotion around himself. At least any besides anger. But this? This had been raw and painful like salt rubbed into a wound. He wished Rester or Lidner had been around, been there to lead Gevanni off with a soft grip on his wrist, a muttering ‘You’re drunk, Gevanni, let’s get you home.’

But they were both already home and it had been Near’s own responsibility, that night, to deal with him.

“Gevanni,” Near had responded evenly, hiding the uneasiness in his voice, he meticulously snipped his scissors along an arched patch, the edges of both paper and scissors suddenly seemingly menacing in their sharpness. “This is entirely inappropriate. I am asking you to please remember your place.”

“What have I done to earn your indifference?” Gevanni took a step into the room, just one step. Stopping when he saw the sudden burning in Near’s eyes. 

L used to tell him that his eyes were his give. 

“You’re white everywhere but your eyes,” he had said one time, musing more to himself than speaking to Near directly despite the fact he had been right on top of them at the time. He had just finished and L’s seed was already wet on Near’s thighs. Perhaps Near had been staring up at him with too much adoration. Perhaps he had seen the pain sex caused him even though Near always tried to hide it from him. He could always endure the pain if he knew it made his mentor happy. Either way, something about his eyes that night had brought about that strange poetic waxing that L was sometimes prone to. Then he had redirected the musings into an actual conversation, addressing Near with the next line. “They hold all your color. White is the absence of color and black is the presence of all color. It’s as if your eyes absorbed everything about you into them and all your emotion is now contained there. You need to learn to control that if you wish to be my true successor someday.”

He had been right, of course. As much as Mello claimed Near came off as robotic and cold, it would not have been worth taunting him if he hadn’t responded in some subtle way. And he hated when Near didn’t look at him.

“Look at me! Can’t you just act like a normal person for once in your life?”

“I am doing a puzzle,” he had replied flatly, which had been true. It had been a jigsaw puzzle of the interior of a candy store; a gift from L. L had not been able to make it to the house that Easter but he had still picked out and sent each of the children a small gift. Mello was complaining because he had lost his own gift already and for some absurd reason believed Near had taken it. As if Near would have any need for a pair of rollerskates.

“You can stop your stupid puzzle for one minute and tell me where my skates are.”

“I have no idea where you misplaced your skates, Mello,” he had said. “Perhaps you do not value Ryuzaki's gifts enough to keep track of them on your own?”

Then there had been fingers on his face and Mello was right there, forcing Near to look at him. It hurt. He dug the tips into the sensitive skin of Near’s jawline and just held him there, staring down at him. His eyes searched Near’s for a long minute, maybe two minutes, before he finally released the smaller boy. Near sat back further, pulling his knee closer to his chest as if he could hide his face behind it. His skin stung.

“You could have just looked at me when I told you to.”

Mello was not an idiot. And he may have been an even judge of better character than Near. He knew Near had not been lying that day. And he did find the skates within an hour. Hidden away by some foolish girl who thought Mello would enjoy taking part in April Fool’s Day. As if Mello would ever for any reason enjoy being made a fool of.

Still, if Mello had been such a good judge of character how had he not known? How could he have tugged at L’s sleeve and begged for attention and chocolate and alone time and _not_ have sensed something? He knew Near slept in L’s rooms sometimes. Everyone knew that, within just a few days of the first incident, because Near’s absence had been noted. His empty bed had been discovered. There had been no immediate panic. Near sleeping somewhere besides his own bed was not unheard of. Sometimes Roger would find him curled up in the library or in one of the common rooms where he had dozed off mid-puzzle.

But that morning nobody had found him. Finally, Roger had sent Watari to L’s quarters. Even Watari was not allowed inside but he knocked politely and L had held up a finger to his lips, reminding Near to keep quiet, as if he weren’t always quiet, before he went to the door. Nothing suspicious. He had already gotten dressed by then. They both had.

“Good morning, L. By any chance have you caught sight of Near this morning?”

“He is here with me,” L had confirmed. Near, playing with his toys on the bed, averted his eyes. He felt different that morning. Something had happened since he had come through that same door last night and he felt like if Watari saw him he would see it as well. That Near was not the same boy he had been at dinner the night before. “I am giving Near special lessons to teach him to communicate more effectively with others. As you aware, this is his one weakness when it comes to being my top choice for successor.”

“Did he sleep here with you?” Watari asked, clearly surprised that L would even allow anybody in his rooms let alone to sleep with him. He tried to gaze behind L at Near’s form but L shifted his body just a bit to block him. Near knows this because he had been watching him from behind, wondering about it. What had L been hoping to hide? Was he just not willing to yet share his new lover with the outside world once again?

“I feel he needs to become comfortable with the physical presence of others,” L had replied. “Since I have so little time to train him on this I believe it is best to keep him with me as often as possible when visiting. It is no trouble for him to sleep in my quarters, I assure you, but I am sorry for the confusion. Next time I will make sure Roger is aware that Near is with me.”

“Will there be a next time?” Roger had asked.

“Will there be a next time?” Near had asked the night before.

“There will always be a next time,” L had repeated. “But this time is still valuable since I see so little of you.”

Near had stood beside L’s discarded jeans, burying his socked toes in the plush carpet as L carefully undressed him that night. Despite the familiar meticulousness of the actions, it had been different than the times before. Even then, as young and naive in some ways as he had been, Near had known it was different. 

Normally, L was very business-like when readying Near for bed. He had always treated Near like a doll but a very no-nonsense doll; like a little girl who sprays down one of her plastic cherubs with a kitchen hose and yanks its arms and legs this way and that when putting its clothing back on it. 

L was never that rough with Near but it was always quick and to the point. Clothes off, clothes on, teeth brushed. Then a storybook before bed. Children’s tales far below Near’s own level but ones he enjoyed listening to L read anyway, in his quiet, monotone voice.

There was no storybook that night. L took his time. He had unbuttoned Near’s shirt very, very slowly, stopping frequently to glance down into Near’s eyes or to brush his thumb against Near’s pale skin - the bony outline of his ribs, the soft curve of his belly. Once, he reached up to touch Near’s cheek, quickly, as if he were unable to control his own actions. Near, confused, had looked up at him, not understanding why L was biting at his lip.

Once the shirt was unbuttoned, L had carefully slid it back and down over Near’s shoulders, gently, no “lift your arms” or tugging as the sleeves got caught on his elbows or wrists. He did not pull at the cuffs or collar of the shirt as usual but instead slid his hands beneath the edges of the cloth, his fingers light and dry against Near’s skin, pushing, not pulling. Spiderlike, his fingers had been. More goosebumps. The sound of skin on skin on cotton.

He let Near’s shirt drop beside his own jeans then reached for the drawstring of the pajama bottoms. Near never tied them tightly and L unraveled them with just a light tug. The bottoms fell with only a soft rustle and the help of gravity. His pajamas were always very loose on him. Not by his own choice. Near never chose his own clothes. Roger just knew he preferred to wear white pajamas at all times and Near left it at that. Whoever picked out his pajamas may have thought he preferred loose clothing or maybe they didn’t know his actual size or maybe they just couldn’t find a smaller fit.

Sometimes, the other children had asked him how he managed to not drag his sleeves in his food at mealtime or paint during arts and crafts.

Looking back now, Near wonders if L had not removed his underwear that day for a reason. Young Near may have been suspicious of it but if L’s reasoning for removing the pajamas had been that they would dirty his bed then that would have just as easily have applied to the white briefs Near always wore at that age. But he didn’t ask Near to remove them or attempt to remove them himself. He just stepped past him and climbed back into his bed, Near watching him, averting his own gaze at the sight of L’s naked backside. The buttocks were not as obscene as the genitalia but he was so skinny that there had been something almost vulnerable about the back of him. Near did not like to think of L as being vulnerable. 

Near had always been soft. Small, but soft, with gentle curves and rounded hips. L had not resembled him at all, despite some children claiming otherwise. He was all sharp lines and jutting bones - ribs, hips, collar. It made Near feel self-conscious at the time, how babyish he was compared to L’s adult form. He couldn’t imagine L as ever being anything but angles and shadows. 

But L seemed anything but critical when he reached for Near, pulling him onto the bed with him. His hands touched Near’s upper arms, his forehead rested on top of his white curls for a moment. Near had heard him inhale and wondered why at the time; had he been smelling him? Most days Near took a bath before bed but not when L was there. He did not like wasting a moment of their evenings together. 

But that meant Near could not have smelled of clean soap since he hadn’t bathed in over twenty-four hours. So what could have L been smelling on him when he told him a moment later, “You always smell so nice, Near. Like puppy breath and jelly beans.” 

Even at that young age, Near had known he had not been speaking literally. If that was how he had smelled it would have been a revolting stench and Mello would have teased him endlessly about it.

Then L laid down and directed Near to do so as well. Near had no memory of ever sharing a bed with another person before and it had seemed awkward for a moment as he tried to figure out which way to lie. On his back seemed the most logical choice but it felt too exposing at the time. But then L’s hand was on his stomach, pulling him back, repositioning him on his right side, and L was pressed with his chest to Near’s back and it had felt nice. Warm. Comforting. If it had been anybody besides L, Near felt like he may have panicked from an impending sense of claustrophobia. He did not like feeling trapped. 

He found out later, years later when Roger finally allowed him his personal records, that when he had been very small his birth parents used to frequently lock him in the closet when they left him alone. 

Of course, he still has no idea who his birth parents were. That information was redacted. The names scribbled over with black marker, unreadable despite Near’s attempts to decipher the names behind the ink. Somewhere, those records are visible and Near knows that now, today, if he wanted access to that information, he would be able to do so.

After all, he had worked very closely with the American government and his parents were American.

That had not been a surprise to him. He has early memories of taking a plane across a vast ocean that day that L came for him. Yet he always secretly suspected he may have been Canadian. Maybe some unjust association with his own complexion and the need for him to stay out of the sun.

He had come from Ohio. What an uninspiring start for a young boy like himself. Uninspiring but in no way shocking or lifechanging.

What had been surprising, in those papers, was the fact that his parents had been some strange combination of drug addict and evangelical. 

“Nate was found by the apartment’s handyman after a pipe burst. Both parents were gone for several days by that time and the handyman had to let himself into their department with the manager’s key. Nate was located inside a closet, locked from the outside,” the report had stated, the type font blocky and faded as if it had been typed up on an old typewriter or maybe a geriatric word processing. Near had read it alone in his old bedroom; even though he had left Wammy’s House when he was sixteen his room had been kept in pristine condition and even his old stuffed animals were on the bed where he had left them. “Attempt to contact next of kin proved unfruitful but both parents were located shortly after with copious amounts of cocaine in their systems. Given the circumstances, Nate was doing better than expected when taken to the hospital. He was well-fed and relatively clean though as of now he is still under observation due to the close proximity of the bucket the child had been using as a makeshift toilet.”

“You told me they never knew who my parents were,” he had informed Roger, caught off guard when the older man first handed him the manilla envelope. He had only come to sign over information for the bank accounts. He had not expected to receive any additional information about his own history after his eighteenth's birthday. “You told me I was found outside a fire station as a baby.”

“L told you that,” Roger reminded him, his hands clasped in front of him, and it occurred to him for the first time, that day, that he hated Roger. He _hated_ him. He was supposed to be a fatherly figure to all the children there but he never showed them any kindness, any warmth. He was more like a principal than a guardian and he had done _nothing_ to stop L from hurting him. “L did not want you to know the truth about your parents, he thought it would do more harm than good. But you’re an adult now and you are entitled to your records as all the children in this house are at the age of eighteen.”

Near retired to his old bed, ignoring the slight dampness that always came with neglected quilts, and played with the silver mane of a stuffed white horse as he read through the entire portfolio, beginning to end, twining the rough fake fur around his finger as if it were his own hair.

“The mother tested positive for opiates at time of birth. Fortunately, Nate showed no signs of the drug in his system. Both parents share the belief that the child’s albinism is a ‘punishment from God’ to make them ‘repent for their immoralities.’ The father explained that they locked Nate in the closet when they could not be home because they were ashamed for him to be seen in public as he was a ‘testament to their sins.’ The father claims this was for his own safety and there was nothing to harm him inside the closet. The child shows dislike for physical contact and never looks at anyone when being spoken to though his vocabulary is very advanced for a three-year-old. He is able to construct complete sentences and answer questions with comprehension. Still, as of yet he prefers playing alone over talking to others. Somehow, he seems to already be rather literate, though his parents both deny having taken the time to teach him how to read. As of yet, we have not tested his reading level but initial observation shows he is at least at a first-grade level.”

The tests were available later in the portfolio. He had tested at a second-grade level. At three.

That was the last time he saw his parents, from the sound of it. There were no records of them attempting to contact him after that or trying to win back custody. They may have just dropped off the face of the earth.

Perhaps they are dead.

Near had been eighteen when he had been given his records. His mother had only been twenty when she had lost him. The age gap had seemed so minuscule at the time. She had just been an idiot teenager who had gotten knocked up by some other idiot teenager and had a kid far before she was old enough to be trying to raise one. Yet, when Near was a teenager he had already been in charge of his elite group of FBI and CIA agents and had taken down the biggest serial killer in history. Compared to that how difficult could it have been to take care of just one child?

How did he even come from such an idiotic gene pool?

Albinism was not a sign that you were to be struck down by some supernatural being. It was not a punishment from God. It was not a sign of immorality. It was merely a lack of melanin. Not something to be feared.

Though maybe something to be despised. Losing his parents probably would have been an inevitability, no matter his status at birth they were unfit to raise a child, but being condemned to the existence of a lifelong orphan? Surely if he had just been normal some couple would have been more willing to take in a precocious three-year-old. But potential parents don’t adopt freaks that look like they had the color drained out of them.

Today, Near does not mind his condition. In fact, it gives him a certain uniqueness that makes him feel somewhat powerful. But as a child? The other kids at the orphanages used to tease him for his coloring. Not just the first place but at Wammy’s House too.

Except for Mello.

Mello was a bully but he was rarely outright cruel. If he were to make fun of Near for something it would be about something he could control – how he dressed for example. Not the color of his skin.

Near respected that about Mello. He still does. If only Mello had lived. If only Mello had been willing to work with him from the start. There had never been any need for them to fight. If they had met in some other instance. If they had just happened to end up at the same orphanage together, a normal orphanage, one that didn’t pit their children against one another.

They could have been good together. Not alike but complimentary. They could have been friends.

Except, of course, that Near was American and Mello was Russian. There never would have been a reason for them to have ever met at all. If L hadn’t existed.

L, their mentor. L, their legend. L, their ideal

L, who would never tease Near about his condition, but perhaps, just a bit, may have fetishized it.

L always loved Near’s coloring. He told him it made him come off as pure. As clean. He told him his skin was beautiful. His hair was beautiful. 

“You’re as delicate and white as a snowflake,” he would say one day.

“Your skin is as translucent as painted glass,” he would say another.

"You're like a Precious Moment figurine brought to life."

But of course his favorite, the one Near heard the most and most adored and despised: the pet name.

“My little lamb,” L would say as he pet his hair, nuzzled his hair, sometimes sucked on his hair. “I just want to make a bed in your curls and hibernate there throughout the winter.”

At first Near hated the nickname. For so many reasons. He didn’t need reminding that he was so strange looking. And he found it vaguely demeaning in principle. He was not a baby and he was not an animal and he most assuredly was not a baby animal. Also, he had hair, not wool.

And then there came the teasing once the other children heard L refer to him by the name at the breakfast table of all places. To this day, Near is unsure if that had been an accident on L’s part, from a man who seldom made mistakes. He may have just wanted to show off their relationship to the others. It had been over the Christmas holiday, just a month after their illicit affair had begun, and L had still been riding the high of what they were doing.

Maybe he just wanted the children to know that Near was his. 

Being L’s wasn’t the best thing to be labeled among a group of highly competitive children that all aspired to be their mentor. It caused resentment. Rumors began to circulate that L gave Near preferential treatment. Some claimed he was L’s illegitimate son “It’s in the eyes, don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”

Near could deal with that. He could deal with the jealousy and the rumors. But he absolutely despised the songs.

“Wammy’s has a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb. Wammy’s has a little lamb, curls as white as snow. It follows L to his room each day, his room each day, his room each day. It follows L to his room each day, which no one else can do.”

Mello had been the one to put a stop to that little rhyme, of all people. One punch to the face of one of the larger boys and the song was never repeated again. Maybe because Mello was jealous of the second verse for he was never allowed in L’s room. When Near thanked him, he scoffed, “The idiots should know we’re not supposed to say his name out loud.”

That didn’t explain why the first verse also needed to be stopped. But Near didn’t push it. Say what you might about Mello, he did have his own, somewhat flawed, sense of morality.

Later, Mello had started referring to him as “sheep.” It hadn’t been exactly friendly but it hadn’t been malicious either. Maybe he just thought Near was growing too old to be called a lamb any longer.

What would L call him now, if he were still alive? Would he still be L’s little lamb? He hasn’t passed too far over the five-foot mark and L had been nearly six. Somehow, the knowledge that L would still tower over him to this day, if he were here, is oddly comforting. He is older now than L was when he died and even knowing that, that he is technically older than his mentor, leaves an odd churning in Near’s belly. But at least he never reached anywhere near his height.

Near told L about Mello punching the other kid for teasing him. Near had expected L to apologize for starting the stupid rhyme in the first place. He even slightly expected L to scold Mello for being violent. Instead, he called them both into the kitchen and made them sundaes, and told them both how proud of them he was.

“You two are my favorites,” he confessed, as if neither of them knew that. But again, maybe Near is projecting. Maybe Mello did not know that because he seemed ecstatic when L said it. He had watched, beaming with pride, as L poured ladle after ladle of hot fudge onto his sundae. Near had watched the interaction, silently fuming, waiting for L to stop or for Mello to tell him to stop. “Nothing makes me happier to see you two getting along. Especially you, Mello. I know you hate that Near does better than you in school but it’s a very noble thing for you to to stand up for someone weaker than yourself. Oh, we’re out of hot fudge.”

L didn’t even ask Near if he had wanted any. He ate his ice cream plain with just sprinkles and a cherry on top. He could not explain it, not even to himself, but the entire situation had angered him.

L praising Mello.

L not apologizing to Near for the song.

L telling him they were both his favorites when Near should obviously have been pointed out as his absolute favorite with Mello a far second.

L using up all the hot fudge on Mello and not even asking Near if he wanted any. It did not matter than Near never ate chocolate, it did not matter than L knew Near was not a fan of chocolate, he should have _asked_. 

Near did not even finish his sundae. He retired early to bed, ignoring L’s puzzled gaze, and when L did not come for him that night Near retaliated by pretending he didn’t exist that next morning. When L gathered the children together to tell a story about when he lived at Wammy’s House, Near left the room. When L hosted an impromptu sugar cooking decorating class, Near said he was tired and went to take a nap. When L asked if anybody knew the answer to a question in class and he looked directly at Near, knowing Near would know it, Near just twirled his hair and stared back with blank eyes.

It lasted until lunch time, when L finally cornered him in the dining room after everyone else was finished. Near did not fight him, when L scooped him up and carried him to his quarters, but he did not encourage him. When L tried to kiss him, he turned his face to the side. Finally, L kneeled at Near’s feet, Near’s feet that dangled from L’s beside, not even coming close to reaching the floor, and took the boy’s hands in his own.

“What have I done to earn your indifference?” L had asked, and it had been so soft.

“What I have done to earn your indifference?” Gevanni had asked, and it had been so frantic.

Those words had triggered something in Near so deep that before he even realized it he had turned and snapped with venom on his tongue. The color had drained from the other man's fan as Near continued, a look of horror taking over his features.

“Are you into young boys, Gevanni? Is that why you heckle me so? I know I look like a child but I guarantee I do not have whatever you may be looking for down there. I cannot tolerate pedophiles near me and frankly you make me sick. Please leave. And do not return. I will have Rester fill out the appropriate papers for your transfer tomorrow.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What even is this fic?

For a socially awkward recluse who is notorious for failing to look people in the eye for long periods of time, Near has found himself being wooed by a surprising number of suitors over the years. And all of those suitors have been older, taller, and most decidedly male.

Near is unsure if he unintentionally emits a homosexual aura or if he just fits the taste of a certain subset of the gay male population. He does not understand sexuality. Not really. In a cold, scientific manner he, of course, is rather educated on the topic. But Near is uncertain if he himself is even homosexual, or bisexual, or any type of sexual for that matter. 

Since L’s death, Near has been sexually active with nobody besides his own hand. And even then it comes as a physical necessity, something to deal with periodically, not something he finds particularly pleasurable but distracting.

He just isn’t quite sure what it is about his subordinates that attracts them to him. Gevanni may have been the first to develop some sort of strange infatuation for his boss while working closely beside him but he had not been the last. Was it a power thing? The wish to dominate Near after being subjugated to his whims for so long? Or was it the opposite, a submission thing? Did they want to be under the control of him, unconcerned with his physical size given his absolute authority?

The second occurrence followed a few years after his unpleasant encounter with Gevanni, when Near’s face had leaned out some and his hair had grown longer but still nowhere near the length it would eventually reach. He may have not looked twenty-two by that time but he at least no longer looked thirteen. He had matured and not just physically. 

His underling, a fair-haired man with the pseudonym Wight, had come to him that day in February reeking of expensive cologne and fear. Contrary to his normal professional and kept behavior he had been stammering and rubbing at the back of his neck and Near had understood what was happening. Memories of Gevanni, stinking of humiliation and frustration, had come flooding back to him after three years of trying to repress them.

Near had learned from that awkward first encounter. He refused to be forced into another such situation and brought an immediate halt to it, pressing at the call button he always kept by to summon Rester to him. He disliked disrupting the older man’s personal lunch hour where he liked to sit by himself and read those history books he favored but Near had lost patience for these situations.

As usual, without complaint or question, Rester came to his aid.

“Near, what’s wrong?” Rester asked, appearing beside him as if he had materialized from the very vapor in the air. “Is there an emergency?”

“Everything is fine, Commander Rester,” Near assured him. He picked up one of his transformer robots and began playing with the red plastic limbs. “Can you please show Wight out of the building and write him a letter of recommendation? I would greatly appreciate it. You may, of course, take a longer lunch once this is completed.”

“I,” Rester had hesitated for only a moment then nodded, already reaching for the younger man’s arm. Near watched from the corner of the eye the way the two men’s feet approached each other, uncomfortable with the idea of even looking up towards them. He hated emotions. He hated the messes they created. And Wight had just been starting to fit in.

Wight hadn’t appreciated the gesture and had shaken Rester off him, muttering something about being able to help himself out as he took a couple steps backward. His back brushed against one of the desks and Near heard the rattle of fragile electronics disturbed. The sound faded as they stilled.

“You can’t just get rid of anybody who doesn’t fit your idea of how humanity works, Near,” Wight had told him, the fire in his voice such a contrast to how defeated Gevanni’s had sounded with his rejection. “You can’t remain the eternal ice prince in this fortress of toys you have constructed for yourself. Someday you will have to feel something. For someone. For anything besides those stupid toys.”

Wight had been an idiot. Even with his genius IQ he had been an idiot. If he thought Near was incapable of feeling for others he must have been as blind as he was pathetic.

It was just that Near didn’t feel anything for anybody alive.

He felt love. He felt hatred. He felt confusion. He felt regret.

That last one may be the worst.

There was a movie the kids at Wammy’s House had watched a handful of times during the weekly movie nights where Roger let them stay up late and fed them popcorn and graham crackers. It had been a favorite with the girls because there had been a unicorn and pretty music and a prince. The boys liked the magicians and the witch and the giant red bull. Near may have enjoyed the movie himself, under different circumstances. He watched it from the back of the room as he watched all the movies, playing with his toys and his attention not suffering in the least because multitasking had always come naturally to him. 

It’s been nearly two decades since he’s seen the movie but he often finds one of the last lines from the film coming to his mind: “No unicorn was ever born who could regret. But now I do. I regret.”

As a child he had not been emotionally mature enough to understand why those words had been so painful for the unicorn. He had been more concerned about the fact the other children kept pointing at the pale skinned, white haired human embodiment of the unicorn and laughing that it was Near. A few of the older boys would try to brush his hair off his forehead, taunting that they just wanted to see if his horn had left a spot on his forehead. He would never lash out at them like they wanted, just turn his head away and wait for Roger to reprimand them.

“Leave Near alone. You know he doesn’t like to be touched.”

No, he had not been fond of that movie. It had been a strange cartoon and the music had been soothing but the themes had been lost on a younger version of himself. What did a young Near have to regret with his life? He had L and that was all he needed.

Now though? 

He misses Mello.

He wishes he was still alive. He wishes he was here with him now, working at his side. 

He regrets not trying harder to convince him to work with him. He regrets not doing more to save him.

If Wight had thought he had been original in referring to Near as an “ice prince” he was sadly mistaken. Mello first cursed him with that foul nickname within his first few weeks at Wammy’s House. Even back then, at his young age, Mello had thought of himself as the leader of the children of the orphanage and had become quickly and openly hostile at Near’s refusal to worship at his feet. Or so Near had interpreted the situation as an overly critical and defensive five-year-old.

Now, Near recognizes how hard Mello sought to create some sort of friendship with him, to bond with him. Maybe even then, only weeks after initial introduction, Mello had recognized that Near may have been the only other child in that building that had come close to his level of competence. Back then, Near had assumed all of Mello’s attempts to reach out to him had been to mock him as the children at the other orphanage had mocked him. Why else would somebody as popular as Mello attempt to talk to him, attempt to play with him, attempt to coax him to go outside with the others?

Near regrets that too. Not accepting Mello’s gruff attempts at friendship early on. Maybe if he had reciprocated those attempts, if he had been a bit warmer, a bit more open, things would have been different.

He could have invited Mello to play with his blocks with him.

Instead he had just pretended Mello wasn’t there. He had ignored Mello’s friendly greetings and then he had ignored Mello’s more defensive ones. He had pretended not to notice when Mello entered the room and circled him, watching him. He pretended he did not hear Mello’s questions. 

That day, he had been doing a word search puzzle in his bed, the covers neatly folded beneath him. Roger had given him a small booklet of paper puzzles, hoping it would keep Near busy while they were replacing the flooring in the common room. The common room was Near’s play place and everyone knew it.

That’s why Roger was having the flooring replaced.

“I’ve been meaning to have that linoleum torn out for years,” he had told Near directly when explaining to him why the room would be off limits for a few days. “It’s so old and the dirt catches so between the lines. You’ll love the hardwood we’re putting down. Your dominoes won’t accidentally get knocked down anymore from the warped surface.”

Near had thanked him in the same monotone he always used, genuinely meaning it, and he had hoped at the time Roger had understood that fact.

It was impossible to pretend Mello did not exist when he slammed open the door to Near’s room and begin to mock him from the doorway. Didn’t he realize all the other kids were outside playing? Didn’t he realize it was a beautiful day? Didn’t he realize how warm it was out?

“Are you really just going to stay in bed all day? Do you even know how to walk? You’re five, not a baby.”

Near turned his eyes up for a moment to look at Mello, acknowledging his presence, but that was it. He went back to his puzzle. He was looking for words that were associated with aquariums. It was his custom to never check the word list until he had completed the puzzle, and even then just to make sure he didn’t overlook one. Sometimes he had located words that weren’t even on the list.

“Come on, look at it outside. It’s the first day that it hasn’t rained in weeks. Come outside and get some sun.”

“The sun is not good for my skin,” Near responded pragmatically. He circles the work “kelp.” “You know that Mello, I would burn within ten minutes in the direct sunlight.”  
  
Then the booklet was gone. In Mello’s hands. Followed by the sound of paper ripping. Near looked up then and watched as Mello tore out chunks of yellowed paper, throwing them into heaps on the floor. Even from this distance Near could spot words on the scraps of paper and he tried to reason what the categories must have been for those puzzles.

What he hadn’t done was show any emotional response to Mello’s tantrum. He knew that Mello was just trying to elicit a reaction from him and anything he did now would just spur on similar actions in the future. Mello’s smile left his face when he realized Near wasn’t going to yell or try to stop him. 

The book was thrown onto Near’s lap. The pages were tinted with more color than his pajamas. Near wondered how long the book had sat on Roger’s shelf to yellow like that.

“Fine,” Mello spit out, reaching up to push his bangs out of his face. “Go ahead. Just sit here alone and pretend you’re an ice prince like in that stupid book you like L to read to you.”

“You’re not supposed to say his name,” Near had reminded him.

Mello had been wrong though. Near had not particularly liked that book about the ice prince. L had been the one liked it. 

The main character had been a little boy with white hair and white clothes and he had been cold and unlikeable until he had made friends with a polar bear who had been as white as he was. Then he had become warm and affectionate. Except he was an ice prince so he had melted away at the end because he was supposed to remain cold. There was some stupid lesson tacked on at the end about the polar bear swimming in the melted ice.

Near wonders if he was supposed to get something from that book. Did L think he would like it just because the boy had been so white and superficially resembled himself? It seems unlikely that L would have thought so little of him, even at such a young age, that he’d think he could be appeased by such simple tactics. Maybe he was trying to teach Near a lesson about letting his guard down. If you warm up to anybody you melt and die. Never let anybody close. 

That had been a common theme in their lessons.

“Remember, children,” L would remind them all on the rare occasions when he would stand in and personally teach one of their lessons, “You must always hide your true intentions and your feelings, especially from a possible criminal. Your emotions may prove to be your biggest weakness. The less volatile you are the harder it is for others to predict your actions. Especially you, Mello, you could learn a great deal from our little Near.”

L’s lesson had been rather hypocritical, considering. While touting Near’s talents as a seemingly emotionless doll, he also did his best to break that shell. In that way he was similar to Mello. Except while Mello could never force a smile on Near’s face, L drew them out easily. Smiles. Laughs. Whimpers. Moans. L drew out all kinds of emotions and reactions from Near that nobody else ever has to this day.

But does that mean Near is incapable of developing feelings for others? Was L a fluke? Even now, he has to admit that the encounters had often been very...pleasant. Physically, at least. And he had loved L. He still loves L. And he knew L loved him. Despite the stuff he did to him, L loved him. But maybe L didn’t know how to love somebody, anybody, the right way.

To this day, Near still asks himself, late at night as he lies in bed trying to sleep, what L’s justification for having sex with a young boy could possibly have been. L used to often say he was nobody’s role model. He was selfish, he was childish, he cheated when he needed to, he was a sore loser. It is possible he knew what he was doing was wrong but did not care.

But maybe that is wrong.

L was a pedophile. 

Maybe this wasn’t something Near realized when he first began having sex with the older man, but he had begun to recognize this simple fact within a year or two. As he started to grow and the softness melted off his body and his face began to sharpen. As the softness in L’s eyes had also begun to fade.

The look of horror that had appeared on L’s face that day, the look of anguish as he pulled back, wiping his hand hurriedly on the blanket.

“But you’re so small,” he had muttered, more to himself than Near. “You’re nearly eleven. I suppose this is normal, but I never would have imagined… Not yet.”

That was the first time it had dawned on Near that L might not want him forever. That maybe he would no longer be L’s little lamb. That maybe L really did just like boys and that there was nothing special about him besides the fact he was convenient and cute.

His heart hurt at the idea of L taking a new lover. He would do anything for him if L would continue to love him, but he had no control over his own growth. He wished he could have held that horrible liquid inside him. It hadn’t even been white and thick like L’s. It had been translucent and there had been so little of it.

L had not only coaxed Near’s first dry orgasm from him he had drawn out his first ejaculate.

It probably should have been a milestone in his life. The first time he actually came. But it had been a bitter, frustrating experience instead. He swore after that he would just refuse to do it. He could fake it. Let L think the first time was a fluke. Maybe he just peed a little, that’s all. He could fake his orgasms and pretend they were still dry and that he was still L’s little lamb.

Except L knew all the right ways to touch Near and he always came under his hands. 

Maybe that was all the evidence L had needed that their relationship had been acceptable. Near enjoyed it. Near orgasmed. Of course, any child could orgasm while being molested and that didn’t mean they wanted it. But Near had been much more mature than other children his age. 

“You’re so special to me,” L had explained to him that first time. “You’re going to be my heir because you are so vastly intelligent. Nobody else could ever take my place. You are extraordinary. I want to kiss you, Near, and I’m going to kiss you now unless you tell me you do not wish for me to do so.”

And Near always had felt special when it was just the two of them together. He had felt loved. He had also felt aroused. Sometimes he was the one who initiated it. When he would wake up in the morning and his insides still ached and he was still wet between his thighs but he wanted L to make him feel good and he wanted to make L feel good and he just wanted the older man to hold him and kiss him and tell him how special and good he was.

Though now he often wonders if those feelings had been genuine or some sort of protective response against the trauma of being fondled by a man over twice his age the time. His own childish mind trying to coat the pain with a false colorful varnish.

“I want to kiss you, Near, and I’m going to kiss you now unless you tell me you do not wish for me to do so.”

That had been somewhat like asking for permission, but it had also been more like a declaration of his intentions. Yet there had been an option there. A chance for Near to reject him, to ask him to take him back to his own room.

He could have said no.

But he didn’t.

To this day, Near does not know why he did not tell L he did not want him to touch him. Maybe he had been somewhat frightened of L, but that was not really the problem. Perhaps he was scared of L turning against him; cutting off any signs of affection, ending their conversations, halting the gifts, and most importantly ending his potential career as L’s successor.

Or maybe, maybe Near just didn’t want to make L unhappy. Since the first time he had seen L smile, that time he gave him the chocolate from that little puzzle box, Near has lived to please him. He loved L, in the way a strange, intelligent, socially awkward orphan is capable of loving a person, and he wanted L to love him back.

So what does a child do when the only person in the world they love tells them they want to show that they love them in return? Maybe in a way that is not entirely appropriate but so real and so genuine?

L always smelled like sugar. He brushed his teeth very often throughout the day, a necessity given his diet, but no matter how often he brushed them his breath still smelled like sugar. Later, Near learned, from inspecting L’s private bathroom, that he used a sweet child’s toothpaste that sparkled in the bathroom lighting rather than the harsh, chalky spearmint that the orphanage provided the children.

L always smelled like sugar and he always tasted like sugar. That was Near’s first thought when L leaned in and pressed his lips to his. The second thought had been that L’s tongue was much too big for a mouth as small as his own. And now Near wonders what kind of audacity that man had. To not even give a nine-year-old boy a chaste kiss? Just one, before diving in fully, pillaging his mouth as if it had been a pirate’s cavern?

Near hadn’t respond to the kiss. He had no idea what he was supposed to do and his mouth had felt so full with L’s tongue how was he supposed to do anything but sit there and breathe out of his nose and try to suppress the panic of impending suffocation dwelling in his mind.

Still, L did not look particularly displeased with their first kiss. He just pulled back into his original position and looked at Near, his thumb going to his lips as if he were thinking, but his lips had softened with a smile.

“Little Near,” he mused, chuckling to himself, “My innocent little lamb. I suppose I cannot expect you to know how to do everything on your first try, can I?”

Except that had not been his first try. L did not own Near’s first kiss. That privilege belonged to Matt. 

And it had been on a dare.

Or at least, Near had always assumed it had been a dare. There had never been any confirmation on that theory, but he cannot imagine that Matt had kissed him out of any personal desire.

It was the summer before L and his affair began. Near had been eight, just a couple months short of nine, which means Matt would have been ten at the time. Even back then he had been friends with Mello, but he lacked Mello’s social or physical skills. Their friendship had been strange, one born of convenience perhaps, as they had been very close in age. In some ways he was more like Near than Mello - quiet, introverted, preferred to be inside on his own playing games.

In other ways, Matt was nothing like Near. Matt knew how to interact with people. He knew how to flirt. He was popular without putting any effort into it. He was cool and distant without being a freak and that made him mysterious and attractive to the other children. 

Yet when Mello was outside playing with the other kids, usually showing off his physical prowess, Near and Matt were left alone together. Near would sit in the middle of the common room, playing on the floor with one of his toys, and behind him, their backs turned to each other, would be Matt playing one of his video games. It had been pleasant in its own way. Near came to find the sounds associated with Matt oddly comforting. The clicking of his controllers. The soundtracks to his games. Even the quiet way he would sometimes curse to himself. It had been almost ambient, like the gentle patter of rain hitting against the windows.

On that rare occasion where Matt was not there, when he was sick or decided to actually go outside and socialize with the other kids, Near often had found himself unable to concentrate. It had been almost too quiet. Even today, he has trouble concentrating when a room is too quiet. He needs a fan or some quiet music playing. Something so his mind doesn’t get stuck on the silence.

One day, Near had not been feeling well. Not sick enough to call for spending the whole day in bed but his body had ached, and his eyes had been puffy, and his head had felt clogged and he had been only a day or two from developing a full on cold. As usual, he shuffled into the common room after the last class of the day, toys in his arms, and slid down onto the polished wood floor. Matt followed only moments later, loaded up on chips and soda and ready for a long evening of gaming.

That day, Near had made a request.

“Matt?” Near had hesitated because he hated asking anything from anybody.

“Mmm?” Matt had sounded distracted, which he probably was. Near could hear him going through his game collection, looking for something to play. Or maybe just looking for a certain game.  
  
“Could you please play that one game today? The one with all the pipes?”

“Mario?” Matt asked, and he turned to look at Near over the back of the couch. He was wearing his goggles. Near had asked him once about the goggles and he said he wore them because they were tinted and they protected his eyes from glare from the screens. The yellow of the goggles made his blue eyes look green. “Which one? I have like twenty Mario games.”

“No, not Mario,” Near shook his head, and just that little of a motion made him feel dizzy. He did not want to lay in bed though. He wanted to sit on the floor and play with his cars today. “The one with the person in the yellow spacesuit where they have to kill the giant brain at the end.”

“Metroid? Yeah sure. Do you want to come play with me?”

Near shook his head and looked down at his toys. He picked up a yellow Corvette and began pushing it across the floor. He didn’t look at Matt as he explained. “I just want to listen to the music. I find it soothing.”

Matt was silent for a long moment. Then Near heard him turning away and there was a rustle and then clacking of game cartridges. The familiar snap of the cartridge being pushed in place, the click of the system turning on, then the quiet beeping of the synthesized music that Near recognized as being the beginning of the game he had described.

He returned to his cars without saying a word. Matt was quiet as he usually was, concentrating on his game, starting it anew even though Near knows he has already beaten it more than once in the past.

The thing is, Matt was just as gifted as any of the other children at Wammy’s House. It’s true they were gifted in different ways and Near was, technically, the most intelligent of the children, but only in the way that was measurable. Matt was good with strategy and had excellent reflexes. He could beat video games with little effort and when Near did, on occasion, observe him play, his characters often ran through levels, sometimes barely touching the ground, always flying out of the way to avoid projectiles and enemies as flawlessly as if the video game had been as staged and choreographed as a ballet.

The first time Near had watched him play a game in such a way he had assumed Matt had merely memorized the level all the way through. He knew where the obstacles were because he had played it so many times in the past. Except one day he watched the redhead unwrap a brand-new game, turning away Mello’s request to join the others in a game of soccer, with an explanation “You know how long I’ve been waiting for this to come out, lemme play it in peace.”

And as before, Matt had just charged headfirst through the game, barely stopping, until he had beat it all in one sitting. It had left Near impressed that day. It was almost as if Matt could predict the future. Or may he just knew patterns. How many video games do you have to play before you pick up the habits of the game developers, unwittingly or not?

Maybe Matt just had incredible intuition.

He did not beat the game, Metroid, that day. It was a school day for them, and he did not have an entire afternoon to sit there and play. But he played for quite a while and Near sat where he was, feeling worse and worse as the minutes ticked by, but refusing to admit defeat. Then the clock was going off and it was already six o’clock. Dinner was always at 6:15.

Matt clicked off the console and Near began to collect his toys. He would always drop them off in his rooms and wash his hands before dinner - he knew that the floors of Wammy’s House were never entirely spotless. He would then slide on a pair of slippers to wear to the dining hall because Roger insisted that eating with bare feet was “unhygienic.” As if he were eating with his feet instead of his hands.

He had a wicker basket he used to transport smaller toys around the orphanage. It was the perfect size for his collection of small cars, and he was just putting the last of them into the basket when Matt’s feet appeared before him. White, neon orange, and hot green sneakers. Near knew them instantly and tilted his head up to look at the older boy, wondering what he was doing. The answer appeared to be nothing, as Matt just stood there, looking down at him. Near frowned slightly and gathered his basket in his left arm just as Matt held out his hand and said in a voice that was suspiciously friendly “Grab my hand, I’ll help you up. You look like crap.”

He would have rejected his help except he felt as bad as he must have looked so he allowed Matt to grab him and pull him up. The redhead even took his basket for him, telling him he would help him get back to his room.

“I can tell Roger if you’re too sick to go to dinner?”

“That would be appreciated,” Near gave in. The walk to his room was not far but it had felt like miles. He had swayed on his feet, one hand against the wall for balance, grateful when he finally made it to his room and was able to collapse onto his bed. The bed he hated to admit he probably should have spent the entire day in.

“Where do you want the toys?”

“On top of my toy box is fine,” Near had responded quietly. He had been on his back, the pillow like heaven beneath his head, but the overhead light as bright as the sun to his aching eyes. He covered them with his arm, the loose fabric of his pajama sleeve feeling too scratchy on his hypersensitive skin.

Even through the fabric and his closed eyelids the light invaded his senses. Except then it was gone and the room was dim. The light from the open door the only light illuminating Near's small bedroom.

“Do you want me to tell Roger to come see you?” Matt’s voice had been closer than Near had assumed it would be. The other boy had just been standing beside his bedside, apparently watching him.

Near had shaken his head.

“I just want to sleep,” he told him. “My head hurts, that is all.”

“Alright,” Matt agreed. 

Then the room had gone silent for a long minute. The pressure of his arm on his eyes had felt good but Near’s breath had sounded loud in his ears so he finally moved it from his face, startled to find that Matt still stood there. He thought he had left the room. It made him uneasy. He did not like surprises. It felt like his own senses had betrayed him, somehow, by not picking up on Matt’s presence.

“I’m fine,” he insisted again. “Go eat dinner before Mello takes all the rolls again.”

Matt nodded in that short, terse way he sometimes did. The floor creaked as he turned. Near closed his eyes once more and waited for the sound of silence to take him away.

That’s when Matt had kissed him. It had only lasted a second. A brush of small lips against smaller lips. But by the time Near’s eyes opened Matt was nearly out the door. He watched, still in shock, as Matt closed the door behind him. His face burning. His already clogged head now even fuller than it had been, now with confusion.

He reached up to touch his lips, the tips of his fingers just peeking out from his oversized sleeves. He expected them to burn under his touch. Isn’t a first kiss supposed to feel magical?

He had just felt dumbfounded. His first kiss had ended before he even knew it had begun. And it had been with another boy.

No, L was not the first person to kiss him. He had let L think that, the first time he kissed him. And he had asked him permission. In that strange way L was capable of ever asking for anything.

Matt had never asked for permission. 

And it must have been on a dare because why else would anybody have wanted to kiss an ice prince like Near?


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit shorter chapter.

Near knew the sound of those steps anywhere. The slow, strange pattern. The way the feet fell that should have been loud and thundering due to the awkward gait but instead were so muted that one almost wondered if they belonged to a ghost rather than a living man. The steps only a bare foot could make.

Near turned to look over his shoulder and there he was without warning and without announcement. L brought his finger to his lips, indicating he should be quiet, as if Near would ever shriek in delight, and Near turned his eyes towards the large picturesque windows that displayed the backyard. All the other children continued to play at some game of tag, oblivious to the fact their mentor and idol had made a surprise visit to the house. Their screaming laughter was muted by the glass.

“Come here, little lamb,” L murmured, reaching down for him. Near extended his arms up and they went around the man’s neck, desperate for touch. It had been fifty-seven days since he had last seen his lover and he felt like crying at how good it felt to be in his arms. Warm and solid and smelling like sugar. When L lifted him up his feet knocked over the Little People Barn he had been playing with, scattering the toys noisily over the hard floor. One of the Little People rolled beneath the unoccupied couch.

“You didn’t say you were coming,” Near said. He still held a single plastic chicken in his hand, and it dug into the back of L’s neck, but the older man didn’t say anything about it. He just brought his hand to the back of Near’s head, his fingers digging into his white curls. The sensation brought a flood of pleasant tingles that traveled down Near’s spine. His nose was sharp and prodding against the boy’s temple as he breathed deeply, inhaling the scent of Near’s hair.

“You thought I would miss your tenth birthday?” L asked, his breath hot against Near’s ear.

Yes, Near had thought that. He had missed his eighth and his ninth. Of course he had expected him to miss his tenth.

“ _But you weren’t his lover, then_ ,” a voice in his head reminded him. And something akin to pride blossomed in his chest. He was important enough to L that he came to visit just him on his birthday. L loved him and set time aside just to see him.

His toys were left discarded in the middle of the common room floor, unneeded. L kept plenty of other toys in his bedroom for him to play with whenever he visited. The miniature farmyard would have to make do without its overlord for the evening.

Near clung to L, his arms around his neck, his legs around his skinny waist. He could feel L’s heartbeat, strong and steady, beating against his own chest where his heart was beating erratically, overwhelmed with excitement and emotion. His grip was so tight that L could probably have released him, and he would still cling onto him like a baby monkey on its mother. The theory was not tested, however, as L did not even let go of him to lock the door behind them. Just kept one arm around Near’s waist, the hold so tight that for a second Near’s ribs ached, but it was only a second, because then L’s other arm was around his shoulders and he was being laid out on the bed like some pristine virgin sacrifice.

“My little Near,” L sighed against his lips, his long hair falling over not only his own eyes but Near’s, tickling his nose and causing a small sneeze to escape from him. L jolted back, stunned, wiping at his face, but it had been a dry sneeze. “I’m sorry, it must be dusty in here. It has been weeks.”

The bed felt too cool, long unused, probably due for a laundering. The smell of their previous lovemaking was long gone. These were different blankets than the last time. The old ones probably washed and folded somewhere, left in a pile outside his door by L the morning he left as usual. L hated soiled bedding.

“What a special birthday this is for you,” L proclaimed, touching the boy’s face with fingers. His thumb brushed against Near’s lips and he found himself parting them without thinking. L smiled.

“Is it?” Near asked. He did not see the big deal in turning ten. It didn’t mean he could drive or drink or vote. He was not even a teenager. It was just another birthday. But L was here and that made it special. L being here was much more important than just another date on the calendar.

“It is,” L agreed. He kissed him again then, but this was different from the first and Near’s eyes closed. The taste of sugar in his mouth. The taste of L. Both of L’s hands were on his face now, cradling him gently even as his tongue ravaged Near’s mouth. It slid against Near’s own tongue, massaging it. He couldn’t help the small whimper that escaped on its own accord, being swallowed up by L’s lips. Near tried to reciprocate the gesture and L let him play at it but his tongue was small and could never lap at the roof of his mouth like L did with him. In his eagerness, Near’s teeth accidentally clashed against L’s and he pulled back, covering his mouth in reflex to the pain of something hard against his teeth.

L’s lips were shining, wet with spit, Near’s perhaps, or his own, or likely both. Embarrassed, the boy wiped at his own mouth, finding drool not only on his lips but also his chin, but L didn’t seem concerned about that fact. He left his own lips how they were, only licking a bit of the moisture off. He pulled back and there were hands on Near’s chest. The buttons of his shirt being undone by elegant fingers. The air felt cool against his exposed skin and L’s hands were even cooler. Goosebumps rose, making the small white hairs on Near’s arms stand up straight. L leaned down and began kissing the skin as it was exposed. Small, chaste kisses, as one would apply to the belly of a kitten rather than the belly of a boy.

“You see, Near,” he murmured against his overstimulated flesh. “Your age is now two digits and for the rest of your life it will be two digits unless you live to be a hundred. That is why ten is a such a very important age.”

Near could not ever imagine ever being a hundred. He couldn’t imagine anything beyond this day, within this room. He couldn’t imagine past this moment as he watched L unbutton his shirt, the joy shining in his dark eyes as if Near were his birthday present and not the reverse. Near could not imagine a better present than having L here with him. All to himself, even. He tried to control his breathing, counting as he inhaled and exhaled through his nose.

“Will the others know you are here?” Near asked, trying to ignore the heat in his body. Trying to distract from the arousal he was already feeling taking over the edges of his brain. It was always difficult for him to give in to pleasure. There needed to be a disconnect between feeling and thinking for it to happen and Near never knew how to just stop thinking. Only L could make that happen.

“I suspect they’ll already have their suspicions when they see your toys abandoned. Now hush, nothing about the others, it’s just me and you right now my little Near, my little lamb, my little lover.”

He had to resist the urge to cover himself when L stood up. He did not like feeling exposed and lying on a bed, naked as the day he was born, legs spread, adoration in his eyes, was about the most exposed a person could possibly be. But he resisted because he knew it would only be a moment. He watched L pull his shirt over his head, his mess of black hair coming out somehow even messier than it usually was, then his hands were at his jeans and Near felt giddy with excitement as it appeared.

L was already hard.

Near expected as much. It was difficult to tell with L’s consistent choice of baggy jeans, fortunately for the others in the orphanage, but L was nearly always aroused already when he carried Near to his bed. And it _had_ been nearly two months since they last touched one another. He would never say it aloud, not even to L, but Near felt as if the older man’s penis was his own special toy. One only he and L were allowed to play with that was otherwise kept locked away from prying eyes.

L fell on Near like he was an oasis in the center of an endless desert. With every second that passed the gentleness of his touch faded as desperation took over and Near felt his own reserves slipping away. When L’s teeth clacked against his own this time there was no pulling away, L just pulled him even tighter against him, his tongue nearly down Near's throat, saliva wet on Near’s face. His own penis, so small compared to L’s, nudged at L’s belly, making itself known, and L reached for it, his hands now shockingly cold against his warm skin. But that didn’t matter because then it was more than warm, it was hot, hot inside L’s mouth, and Near could do nothing but breathe heavily through his nose as he squirmed beneath him, simultaneously trying to pull away from the sensation and dive in deeper.

L gripped him by the hips and held him down against the sheets, halting his movement, his eyes turning up to watch Near’s face. Waiting. Desperately, Near reached out for something, anything, to grab onto it, but found little more besides blanket and sheets. Unable to squirm, unable to distract himself with toys, that left little release besides vocal which he finally gave into, letting out one large sobbing noise followed by a series of distressed sounding whines. His little hard on throbbed on L’s tongue. His hand massaged the hairless silken balls.

L smiled around the prepubescent cock in his mouth and reached for Near’s face with his free arm, touching his cheek, his hand so large that it nearly covered half his face. This time, when Near parted his lips he slipped his thumb into Near’s wet mouth and the boy sucked on it, grateful to have something to distract him from the overwhelming pleasure. He wanted to desperately to writhe but all he could do was lay there and take what L was willing to give.

“You’re sensitive today,” L observed a minute later, leaving his little cock wet and twitching but unsatisfied. He pulled his thumb from Near’s mouth but this time Near didn’t care about the drool left on his lips and neither did L as he kissed him against. Their chests pressed together but L was much bigger than him. Near felt so small beneath him but not in a bad way. He enjoyed the feeling of having his lover hovering over him, shielding him from the world outside those locked doors. He enjoyed feeling like he could just exist and let somebody else do the rest. “I enjoy seeing you this way, but I cannot have you finish yet. It is your birthday, after all, and a birthday boy needs to be taken care of.”

“Make love to me,” Near pleaded, already knowing that L was going to ask permission to do so next. It wasn’t something they always did. It took a lot of work for L to get Near ready and sometimes it still wasn’t enough, and it hurt and one time there had been blood. But Near loved it. And L loved it.

“This is the purest way I can show my love for you,” L had told him the first time they did it. “I know you’re very small yet but to make love with you would, I believe, be the closest to heaven I could reach on earth. When we do this we will, for a short time, not be two people but one.”

Near had never imagined how painful it could be. Near had never imagined how good it could be.

“Of course,” L replied to Near’s request. “Nothing in this world would make me happier than to make love to my little lamb.”

L had told Near he was his first. His first everything, besides his first kiss anyway, which he had been forced into taking part in during numerous occasions.

“They had been very stupid girls that I had no interest in,” L had assured Near, as if he could sense the jealousy bubbling beneath the surface. “Just kid’s games. Spin the bottle. Things like that. You have no need to worry of them.”

It made Near proud to know he had been his first everything else. His first hand job. His first oral encounter. His first penetration. Near could forgive the pain L had inflicted on him the first couple times, understanding that L had been perhaps as lost during those initial experiences as Near had been. He gladly dealt with the pain, knowing that he was the only one to have ever felt it. L was completely his and he was completely L’s.

He was gentle again as he pulled Near onto his knees, pressing a hand between his shoulder blades to encourage him to lay his head on the pillow. It was a different pillowcase. The last one had been white with small yellow flowers. This one had red roses on it. Perhaps L had thrown away the last one so the others would not see the evidence when they did his laundry. Blood. Not a great deal. Near, in a haze of pain, had bitten into his own lip instead of into the pillow as intended and had split it, leaving a smear of his own blood on L’s case. Maybe it is wherever the old comforter is. Maybe L lied and said he had a bloody nose.

L had been so gentle afterwards. So, kind as he touched Near’s lip softly and asked him if he needed something for the pain. The next time he kissed him he had done so oh so softly, but it had still ached.

Near hadn’t even noticed the blood at the time. He had been concentrating too much on the pain inside to have noticed the pain in his mouth. He had nearly asked him to stop that time.

The pain isn’t too bad today.

L uses his mouth on him, and it feels odd as it always does, too wet and too squishy, but also kind of nice. L knows how to use his tongue and before long Near is panting into the pillow and pressing back, trying to get more into him. It feels too soft and not big enough and just enough to tease. Then it’s the fingers. The first one is okay but the second one causes an ache inside him that causes tears to spring to his eyes. But it doesn’t last long. Near does his best to relax, to allow himself to be opened without resistance. He knows this is the best thing he can do and the hand on his dick doesn’t hinder this.

Another finger. Then they both disappear for second, leaving Near quivering and panting in need, and he hears the disgusting squelching noise of more lube being applied. It is cold against his heated flesh and he jumps when the fingers push back in. The third one pushes in much slower than the first two. Near’s insides cramp. But he can do this. He knows he can do this. He breathes in and out, even his lungs aching. The pillow is damp with his hot breath and tears but there is no blood. His entire body is tense, and he tells himself over and over to relax. His cock pulses between his legs.

“You’re so beautiful,” L tells him, and his voice is so calm. Near wants to be that calm someday. Even in situations like this L is in control of himself. When other men would be an unraveled mess, L remains in control. “Like some majestic Greek statue of the purest white marble. I wish I could take pictures of you like this and keep them just for myself to remember this moment.”

They both know they can’t do that. It creates evidence. Evidence is bad. Evidence is forbidden.

Finally, L decides Near is ready. Near listens to the wet sound of the lubricant on flesh and by the rhythm of it he knows that L is not adding more to his fingers, he is applying it to his hard cock. He clenches his eyes closed and concentrate on being open and soft, as if he were made of a gelatinous goo instead of flesh and bone. He imagines himself as wide open and easy as a glove.

He’s not quite sure what an average man’s cock must look like, but he can’t imagine that they’re all this big. How would women normally take one without being torn apart if they were as big as L’s? Near feels as if his entire body is being parted. He is the Red Sea under Moses’ staff. His fingers dig harder into the pillow and a whine escapes him without his permission. His entire body shakes.

L lovingly strokes his back as if he were a hissing cat and tells him to relax. “I got you my little lamb, just let go, just let go.”

He knows he has done this before. He has taken L’s cock into his body in the past. But it must have grown because Near’s raddled mind screams at him to pull away, to come to his senses. He cannot take something this big inside him. He cannot he cannot he cannot-

Then it is buried entirely to the hilt and Near can feel L’s scrotum pressed against the curve of his buttocks. He’s in. It hurts but he’s in. He’s in so deep that Near swears he can feel his stomach cramping around the intrusion. His asshole spasms around the shaft.

The pain doesn’t last. It has in the past but not today. Near is too aroused. L’s hands come up to cover his chest, his thumbs circling his nipples that have become taut as a trampoline. He kisses the space between Near’s shoulders, mumbling something almost emotional about the beauty of Near’s angular shoulder blades.

Near knows how this works. He knows about the importance and workings of the prostate. He knows about the nerve endings in the rectum. That all leaves his mind as L grips his hips and begins to _move_. All he can think about is how amazing the human body must be to create such sensations. His opening is no longer spasming but tightening around L’s cock. The friction is just not enough now, and he presses back against him, urging L on, asking for it faster, harder. The shallow, slow thrusts aren’t enough. But L always starts off so gentle.

But he is also excellent at reading Near's body posture and he bends over him once more, wrapping his arms around him, holding him tight, holding him still, as he begins to thrust in earnest. Faster. The slap of skin on skin. The bed squeaks. Nears doesn’t even realize he’s moaning until he raises his head from the pillow to take a breath. It doesn’t matter. L’s room is almost soundproof. He’s so heavy on top of him though and Near is so very small it isn’t long before he slides down, his knees no longer supporting him, and L is drilling into him as he lays flat on the bed, unable to move. But he can’t get to his cock like this and he can’t even hump himself against the bed because of L’s weight.

L is an attentive lover. He pulls out and it’s painful, the sensation of his engorged cockhead dragging over Near’s abused asshole. He doesn’t even ask Near to turn over. He turns him over himself, repositioning his head carefully on the pillow and his legs around his waist. Then he takes him like that, face to face, and Near is grateful because now he can kiss him and swallow the embarrassing noises spilling from Near’s lips. It’s deeper, somehow, this way, and Near can reach his own cock and jerk clumsily at it because L’s hands are busy keeping himself propped up over Near’s body, keeping himself from crushing the small child’s body beneath him.

Every time L thrusts into him, Near’s body jerks upwards. Every time he pulls nearly out, he slides back down an inch or two. It’s not an equal ratio and before long Near’s head is nudging against the bed panel. L adjusts his weight for a moment to pull the pillow up, protecting him from the wood, but the next time he thrusts in there is nowhere for Near to go and he is so deep that Near feels a cramping in his guts.

It’s not enough to deter from the pleasure. His hands grab what they can. He wants to grab L’s shoulders, but his arms are not that long, so he grabs at L’s forearms, his elbows. They are as stiff and strong as redwoods. When he cannot find anything to hold onto from his lover, he grabs at the blankets instead.

Near lays beneath his mentor, keening and whimpering and occasionally biting at a bit of the blankets, but he does not take his eyes off L the entire time. He wants to close his eyes, to lose himself in nothing but sensation, but he also wants to remember everything about this for when he is gone once more. He watches the way L’s hair, damp with sweat, falls over his eyes. He watches the way the muscles in his biceps stand out, tense. The way his chest swells and deflates with heavy breaths. He watches his face. The way L does sometimes close his eyes and at those times he goes still, concentrating on not finishing, not yet. Other times he looks like he is almost not there, as if he had ascended to some higher state of being. Yet other times his eyes are as wide as pensive as they are in his daily life, searching Near’s face as intensively as Near searches his.

“You look at me as if I were a god,” he breathes out. There is sweat on his upper lip. Near watches it as it slides down into L’s mouth.

“Are you not?” Near counters, but he barely gets it out before a small scream escapes him. L leans down to kiss it from him and Near scrambles to grab at his shoulders, his neck, his hair. His entire body is alight, every nerve ending alert. He continues to scream his orgasm into L’s mouth.

* * *

Near awakes with wetness on his face and wetness between his thighs.

He feels hollow inside. His breathing is erratic, his heart thudding in the emptiness of the room. When he turns over, he feels almost surprised by his own body. The length of his limbs, and tangles of his long hair falling over his shoulders.

He reaches between his legs, prodding at the space behind his testicles. He feels like he should be wet and gaping, but he is dry, and the area is as closed off and unused as an undiscovered Egyptian tomb.

Metaphorically and literally, he is empty.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I...don't love this chapter. But whatever.

Near was eight years old when the whole Y2K fiasco went down. December 31, 1999. The end of the world had a date. Computers would fail. Electricity would go out. Doors would unlock on their own accord. Teenagers and criminals alike would stalk the streets, pillaging, raping, killing. Civilization as humanity knew it would crumble

At least, that’s what some news sources claimed as likely possibilities. That’s what the foolish workers at Wammy’s House, the cooks and the maids, told the children as they fully stocked all the pantries with months worth of canned and dry goods. Food that would sit in the pantry, unused, for years. Some of it still in there when Near left the home at the age of sixteen. The linen closet near the classroom was stuffed so full of toilet paper it would not fully close for weeks.

Roger gave no opinion in one way or another. Oh, he told them to all remain calm, that everything would be fine, but he did not specify if that would be before or after the end of the world. Maybe he did believe some of the hype since he never forbade the staff from taking precautions. Thankfully, there was only one person in that orphanage that all the children trusted unconditionally.

“I assure you all that nothing catastrophic will happen at midnight,” L had insisted in his eternally calm voice, that air of authority and assurance so strong for a man of only twenty. Even then, Near had known that twenty was still very young.

Some of the children, the most gullible children, had been eaten alive by anxiety, falling for the hype, but L was there. L was there on the last New Year’s Eve of the century. He took turns allowing the children to sit in his lap and ordered more cake any time one of them began to show any hints of anxiety.

“I just wish to enter the new millennia with you all. We are all each others family.”

Near does not recall showing any more anxiety than the others but he does remember spending an inordinate amount of time on L’s lap that year. Perhaps it had been because he had nearly always been the smallest of the Wammy’s Kids. Or maybe it was because even then, nearly a year before the man would make his first move, he had set his sights on Near. He prefers to believe that L had just been being kind for kindness sake. He prefers to believe that L kept one arm around him, feeding him bites of cake and patting his head because he was a caring man.

He’ll never really know L’s true intentions. Maybe if he could go back in that time and observe him now, with the brain and wisdom of a man, he would be able to create a clearer picture of the situation. Two decades have passed and any details that would have given such clues – the look in L’s eyes, how his hands sat on Near’s shoulder, the attention he paid to Near’s small mouth as he delicately ate a bite of cake off the small silver spoon – are all lost to time. Even if that were possible it may still prove fruitless. L was very good at hiding his true intentions to others. How else was he able to get away with molesting Near for four years without drawing suspicion?

L always returned for Christmas each December but New Year’s Eve was different. Sometimes he stayed on throughout the end of the year, usually he did not. A full week of L’s time really was too much for anybody to ask of him. People died when L took time off.

Still, New Year’s Eve was always a special occasion, even when L was not there. All the children were allowed to stay up past midnight to ring in the new year. The cooks spent days readying the feast. Even more than Christmas, the New Years Eve feast was anticipated by all the children of Wammy’s House. Because, while the Christmas feast had to roll out the traditional fares of turkey and potatoes and puddings, New Year’s Eve held no such restrictions. Instead, Roger made the feast special by allowing each child to choose one dish of their own to contribute to the feast and the cooks would make it without complaint. Sometimes this meant there would be pizza beside meatloaf beside twice cooked pork beside curry. Some years the desserts far outnumbered the main dishes.

Except when L stayed for New Years nobody ever picked desserts for they knew that he would provide such a large and novel variety of desserts that it would top anything they could come up with in their imaginations. Even Mello, on these occasions, would deviate from his normal request of a chocolate fondue fountain, knowing L would already have that request covered. Those few times he requested Solyanka soup, a dish the blond boy had very vague memories of eating as a small child when his mother had still been alive.

Near cannot remember much of anything else from that dinner that year, not even what he himself had requested, but he remembers that soup. And he remembers how Mello hated the taste of it but would just sit there with a small white bowl of it in front of himself, smelling it. Mello had hated anything pickled and the soup had contained olives, pickled cucmbers, and capers. It didn’t matter though. Even then Near had understood the meaning behind it. He wanted the memories, not the taste. Usually Matt would finish it for him once it had gone cold as Matt was always hungry and the opposite of picky.

After dinner that night, they retired to the main common room, Near’s common room, which contained the only television in the house besides a very small one that Matt kept in his room that nobody was supposed to know about.

“It’s against the rules to have a television in your room,” Matt had explained to him one day, for some reason trusting Near with this secret. “But Roger says it’s essential to ‘unlocking my unique talents’ so he lets me have it. But I can only play games on it. It doesn’t get TV.”

The couch, Matt’s couch, had been removed for the evening, shoved off into a corridor, and they all huddled together on the floor, specifically around L who always crouched in the exact center of them all. He was the only adult who would ever sit on the floor with them and they just adored him even more for this fact. Nobody even complained if he put on weird movies that none of them were particularly interested in, as he was prone to doing, because him being there and it being New Year’s Eve was enough.

Near cannot remember all the movies they watched over the years, not even all the ones they watched that night, but he does remember one. It had been a movie about a talking pig that was doing its best to not be eaten and Near had assumed it would be a poorly executed _Charlotte’s Web_ knockoff. For once he was happy to be proven wrong, though L did ask the kids to make a game of calling out when the animals in the movie were real and when they were animatronics, somewhat distracting from the immersion experience. He had smiled and laughed and told them they were all so smart when they were correct which, of course, was every time for they were all geniuses.

Still, six hours of movies was more than enough for any child, even a genius child, and especially those with full stomachs. Most of them dozed off at one point or another, curled up into one of the many sleeping bags that littered the floor, waking up again before midnight struck, often with a panicked look towards the clock to make sure they hadn’t missed the ringing in of the new year. L petted their heads as he spoke to them, calmly, assuring them the new year was yet to come.

Near, even then, even before their true relationship had come to a head, was always kept the closest to him. Always at L’s left side so he could keep an arm around him, even when eating sweets or changing the channel with his right hand. The other children hated him for it and Near would never show any emotion in front of him but those moments may have been the best moments of the entire year for him. He missed L terribly when he was gone and considered him his only friend.

As the hour crept closer L poured them all a small splash, not even a mouthful, of real Champagne. Not sparkling apple cider, like Roger allowed them, not even knockoff sparkling wine, but Champagne from the region of France. Roger, of course, threw a fit, sputtering about developing brains and liquor laws and for some reason fetal alcohol syndrome as if any of them were close to the fetal stage of development.

“If the world really does end tonight then we might as well let them have their first drink. Calm down, Roger. Here, I’ve filled your flute to the top, don’t spill it.”

It had been such a special night in so many ways. Though Near had hated the taste of the liquor and had downed it as quickly as he could. It had left a warm burn in his young belly.

But Christmas Eve was also special. L brought giant tins of caramel popcorn and they would eat it as they created popcorn strings for the enormous tree in the special common room – the one they were only allowed into during the holidays with the plush carpet and the ceiling that seemed to reach the heavens. There would be hot apple cider and candy canes and most of the children would have hands sticky with sugar that had to be soaped and washed before they retired to bed for the evening. Watari would play music on the old scarred piano and there would be singing and the children would all do their best to sidle up to L and secure at least a few scant minutes with him just to talk and be near him. Then the popcorn strings would be complete and they would be hung up on the tree and the overhead lamp would be turned off and the only light would be the fire and the tree and the twinkling bulbs along the window. Sometimes, the snow would be falling white against the windows, as soft as dove feathers.

Then L would crouch on the chair before the fireplace, all the children on the floor in front of him, and he would tell them tales of where he had been and what he had done that year, leaving out any small details too gory or gruesome. Not that he normally shied away from such things, he often shared this information in the classroom when he substituted for one of their lessons, but Christmas was different. Christmas was special. Watari would continue to play music but it would be softer so nobody would have trouble hearing their mentor over the tinkling carols.

Then they would all be allowed to open up one present before going to bed, though it was never a surprise what that present was. Every year they each received a new pair of warm, flannel pajamas to put on that evening and a small chocolate cake shaped like a Christmas tree. Not a cheap snackcake like one would buy in a store but a handmade one from some shop none of them had ever been to and each ornament was a different sweet and it was dusted beautifully with edible snow. It was a masterpiece almost too beautiful to eat.

The flannel pajamas were identical besides color. They, too, must have been homemade, because every single child received a different color and no store could manufacture so many colors. Near’s flannels had always been cream colored, warmer than his usual harsh white, and he only wore them to sleep in the coldest months of the year, never around the orphanage. He always gave the cake back to L, wishing him a Merry Christmas.

“This is your Christmas gift,” L would always protest, dutifully.

“I want you to have it,” Near would always answer back, “Just accept it as my Christmas gift to you.” And that would be the end of it because neither of them were fools and knew they did not need any further false protests about the fate of the cake.

* * *

“What is it?”

“It’s a promise ring,” L had explained, removing the tiny trinket from the small box. “I saw it and thought of you.”

“What is it for?” Near ask, confused. He did not see the need of a ring. He was a young boy of ten and did not see the point of jewelry. Especially something so gaudy as this platinum piece with the too-large diamond that would only get in the way and snag on the knitted cloth of the scarf he had received that morning under the tree.

“It’s a promise,” L said. He took Near’s hand in his and slid the glittering item onto the ring finger of his left hand. It was only slightly too big. Big enough to grow into but probably not big enough to still fit him within a couple more years. Near was a slow grower but he _was_ growing. “It’s my promise that I’ll always love you. My promise that I will be faithful to you. My promise that someday you will join me and we will be an unstoppable team. It’s my promise that you will always be my little lamb.”

“It is just a piece of jewelry,” Near had pointed out blankly. He did not need a piece of jewelry to understand any of that. He knew that L loved him. He looked at it anyway. Saw the way the red lights strung up along L’s window glittered against the stone. It _was_ pretty.

“Always so literal,” L chuckled, kissing the top of his head. “Just accept my Christmas gift to you with grace. Even though I am afraid you will only be able to wear it alone in your room. Or in here, with me. I would enjoy it very much if you did, in fact. Merry Christmas, little lamb.”

* * *

They would take turns changing into their pajamas and sit down with their cake and their hot chocolate and L would finish the night off by reading to them the most famous Christmas poem: _Twas the Night Before Christmas_. And though the poem was not especially long he would read slowly in his soothing, calm voice, and by the time it was finished they were all blinking eyes and yawns hidden behind small hands. Which was for the best because if they did not go to sleep early then Father Christmas would never arrive.

Not that any of the children in Wammy’s House were ever foolish enough to believe in a mythical red-suited home intruder. But they pretended to believe in him like the children in the cartoons on the television did and sometimes imagination is as good as the real thing. Imagination was not just a childhood pastime at Wammy’s House, it was a requirement. Solving problems requires imagination.

Yes, Christmas was special. They all loved it and they loved having L there to celebrate it with them. L had always made no surprise of his love for Christmas. Even if he referred to it sometimes as “Artificially manufactured nostalgia.” He never missed a single Christmas at Wammy’s House when Near lived there.

Not when he was alive, anyway.

As an adult, Near continues to celebrate Christmas every year. But there are no fireplaces, nobody playing a piano. No sing alongs, no small chocolate cakes. But he does what he can with what he can. He listens to instrumental variations of classic carols. He instructs Rester to bring back a large tree every year, fresh and smelling of pine with the last remnants of snow dripping off the rough branches. He decorates the tree himself with toys and baubles and the others hang up the lights and garland from the ceiling as he points and directs which set should go where. But something is always missing. Maybe the hardwood floors and snow falling outside. There are no windows inside headquarters.

This year it is just him and Rester. To be fair, almost every year it is just him and Rester; Lidner married years ago and prefers to be at home for the holiday. The rest of his team share similar sentiments. But Rester has no family left besides an estranged older sister and has retained few friends because of his extreme dedication to his job. Every year Near tells him he will be fine on his own and every year Rester says he does not mind staying with him over the holiday. Like him and L, there are no false protests between them. Near makes clear that Rester had no obligation to be with him but he knows he has no need to foolishly act surprised each time the older man says he will stay with him.

Near is rather certain that if they didn’t spend the holiday together they would both spend it alone.

He just wishes he could capture the feel of how it used to be. The magic of his childhood. Even without believing in the supernatural elements of the holiday there had been something magical about it, about the feeling of it, that has not been replicated since the last time Near saw L.

Because Christmas Day, 2003, was the last time Near saw him.

He almost hadn’t even come that year. By then, L had been deep into the Kira case and it had been difficult for him to get away. He only stayed two days but still he came, arriving in the wee hours of Christmas Eve Day and departing after their Christmas Day feast.

“I am going to be showing them my face soon,” he told Near in the sanctuary of his bedroom, their love nest. They only had one night together, one last night, and neither of them barely slept. He had been wearing the ring that night even though it was getting too tight by then and he could only remove it with soap and water. “I am afraid it will be unavoidable given the circumstance.”

“You can just not do it,” Near said, a dread already rising in his gut. A premonition, perhaps, as Near has often had an uncanny ability to intuit the unforeseen. “It’s just another case. You’ve never done this before.”

“It’s not another case and you know it,” L replied softly. “If this person is not caught then the entire world will be at his control.”

He took Near’s hand in his own and brought it to his lips, kissing the ring and Near had understood that this was another promise. He would be okay. He didn’t need to worry about him. He would be okay.

That was the last lie L ever told him.

He never returned.

Christmas 2004 had been somber and quiet and all the kids had retired to bed early without any new pajamas and without any cake. Near had felt like crying but he did not. He changed into last year’s flannels and lay in bed for a long, long time, watching the snow fall outside, feeling more alone than he ever had in his life.

Even now, a decade and a half later, Near does not like to think of that Christmas. He prefers to think of the first Christmas of the millennia instead, though it leaves its own unique aching in his heart.

Everything went as usual that year. They had their sweets and their presents and their stories. Except L kept him even closer that year than in the previous for now they were lovers. Near sat at the foot of L’s chair as he read aloud to them, playing with a stuffed reindeer that glowed in the dark, and L would periodically ruffle his hair. If any of the other kids resented this special treatment they said nothing for it was understood that Near was L’s special favorite. And when all the other children were ushered off to bed to dream of elves and gifts to come, L gathered Near into his arms and carried him into his room once more.

The sheets had been changed since the last time he had visited and they were warm soft fleece that felt welcoming to Near’s cool, bare flesh. L’s rooms were cooler than the other rooms in the orphanage, the vents closed off to keep the heat in the rest of the house, but it didn’t matter since L held him close to him afterwards, kissing him wherever he could reach – his cheeks, his forehead, his hair. L’s chest had seemed so broad and his arms so strong back then, though Near is very much aware that he had never been a very large man. L had been underweight, despite his diet, and his arms had been rather thin and his chest birdlike. But to a boy of nine that was of no concern and L had been larger than life.

It is a sweet memory in Near’s mind, despite himself. If he forgets the time between entering the room and slipping beneath the blankets. If he forgets that had been the evening that L had taught him how to perform oral sex on a man.

It had been an uncomfortable experience but Near had taken it head on as he took every one of his lessons. L told him what he wanted to do, how to do it, and then stroked his hair lovingly as he attempted to follow the instructions. But L had been too large for his little mouth and Near was only able to get the first third of it in, using his hands as L showed him, to pleasure the rest of it as he licked and suckled at just the tip. He kept gagging and tears sprang up into his eyes, making his nose run so that he had to keep pulling back to wipe at his face. Even when he vomited a small amount L told him he was doing a great job and the small boy had just swallowed it back down and kept trying.

It had taken a very long time because of Near’s horrible technique and when he had finally come Near had been unprepared for it. The texture, the taste, had been so bad that Near had thrown up again, right on L’s chest, leaving his face hot with shame.

But L had assured him it was fine and he told him that the fact Near was willing to even do such a thing for him made him very happy even as he was using a towel to wipe the candy canes and hot apple cider off his chest. Then he had reciprocated on Near but Near had been so small that L had no problem taking his entire length in his mouth. It had felt good but Near liked the part after more, the part where L held him close and kissed his face and squeezed him so tight in his arms he could barely breathe.

If he just thinks of the warmth of L’s arms, the love that had radiated off him, he can remember that night with fondness. Neither of them were tired and they stayed up late into the night, talking. L told him stories of Christmases at Wammy’s House when he was Near’s age. He told him about what kind of presents he had received. He described some of his favorite Christmas stories as well and then rambled on about what other children’s books he had liked when he was younger. Near, used to sleeping more than L, began to doze off, but it didn’t matter. L never had need of a conscious listener; he always enjoyed listening to himself speak.

Still, he stopped when he thought Near was asleep. He wasn’t. What is it that compels children to feign sleep in front of others? Even Near, as strange a child as he had been, pretended he was deep in slumber, pretended he did not hear L’s quiet last works before he too went quiet for the night, “I, too, am ready to sleep. Goodnight my little lamb, I have no need to count sheep with you in my arms.”

Near hates that he cannot just remember that moment as something pure and loving. He hates that he cannot forget what happened before. He hates that Christmas Eve will forever be associated with the first taste of semen on his tongue.

He hates that L could not have just been like the big brother figure he needed for just that one night. They could have just slept in each other’s arms, innocently and sweetly, but L had used him first, sullying the entire event in Near’s mind forever. He had been nine, he hadn’t realized what they were doing was hurting him. He had just wanted to make L as happy as L made him happy.

* * *

“Near, are you not hungry?”

The question comes from Rester, seated at the opposite end of the table between them. Before them lies a small dinner prepared by the older man: roast duck, salad, potatoes. Delicious as usual but Near has been trying to swallow the same spoonful of mashed potatoes for the last two minutes. He tilts his head up, his hair falling over his face as usual so that he needs to brush it out of the way to avoid having it fall in his food.

How can he explain to his subordinate that they remind him of the ejaculate of the man he had worshipped which he had been forced to swallow as a young boy? He manages to get down the mouthful of potatoes, wishing he could spit them out into his napkin without being noticed. His throat tightens and he holds back the need to gag. He, irrationally, tastes apple cider and cake in the back of his throat.

“I am very hungry,” he insists, picking up his knife. He tucks some of his hair behind his ear. The duck looks more appetizing than the potatoes. He had never had duck growing up, despite Rester’s surprise over this fact. The commander had assumed that duck was a British tradition, one too many Dickens’ novels apparently. It has become their yearly ritual at this point as a turkey would be too large for just the two of them and chicken too plain for the occasion. “I can never resist your cooking, Commander Rester, rest assured of that.”

“I went a little rarer on the duck this year,” Rester informs him, as if Near would not have noticed. Maybe he assumes Near never paid that close of attention to his cooking in the past but Near had already made note of the deeper red flush of the meat. “You didn’t get sick last year so I thought you would be okay.”

Usually, Near does not indulge in rare meat. His delicate constitution puts him at a higher risk from such delicacies. But it is a special occasion. And it does taste even better than usual, juicier on his tongue. The two eat in comfortable silence, Christmas music ambient in the air between them. Near is wearing cream colored flannels and drinking mulled wine. The alcohol in the drink burns as he is not a regularly drinker. Rester, as usual, is drinking spiked eggnog. A drink that Near has never been able to stomach.

After dinner, they retire to Near’s personal rooms. Rester is the only one ever allowed inside these rooms and it is his responsibility to keep them clean and orderly for this reason. The rest of the building has cold metal walls and hard surfaces everywhere but Near prefers his rooms to be more inviting. The walls are covered with velvet curtains, the floor’s carpet plush and clean. He keeps the door to his bedroom closed for even Rester is not allowed inside his sleeping quarters but there is an overstuffed sofa and a large television to one side, opposite of Near’s toybox.

They sit on opposite sides and Rester finds them a movie to watch. He knows which Christmas specials Near enjoys and which he despises. The stop-motion Rudolph is available on one of their streaming services and he asks for Near’s approval who gives him a short nod. Already growing cold, Near draws one of the many throw blankets over himself and reaches for one of his locks of hair, eyes on the screen. He is still holding a glass of the mulled wine in his other hand and the smell is inviting.

“Before we begin,” Rester interrupts, pausing the movie within the first few seconds. “Let me give you your present.”

“My present?” Near asks, thrown off. Rester never gives him presents. Nobody ever gives him presents. And he did not give Rester a present, besides his normal holiday bonus. He tugs harder at his hair, feeling uncomfortable with the situation.

“It’s, it’s nothing big,” Rester assures him, clearly starting to doubt himself, “I just saw it and thought you would like it, that’s all.”

He’s still in his suit. Rester is always in a suit and Near has never seen him dress down. He searches through the pockets of his jacket for a moment then pulls out a very small box wrapped in silver paper. He holds it out to Near who hands him his glass of wine and then takes the gift carefully in both hands. Under Rester’s nervous gaze, he slowly unwraps in.

“Merry Christmas, sir,” Rester said as Near removes the cuff links from the box. They were in the shape of dice but obviously of expensive material. Silver and some precious stone. White sapphire, perhaps. Pricey but Rester is right, probably nothing on his salary.

“Cufflinks?” Near asks. He had no idea what he would do with a set of cufflinks.

“You have that ball at New Year’s,” Rester reminded him, referring to the one the governor would be attending. “I thought these would go well with your suit and, and give you something to play with a bit, perhaps.”

To play with. Yes. Near hates formal occasions. He hates dressing up. And he hates that he cannot have any toys with him at these events. He could very well see himself fiddling with these cufflinks next week as he waited for midnight to strike so he could depart.

“Thank you, Commander Rester,” Near said sincerely. He closed the lid of the little velvet case. “I will wear them, gladly.”

As usual, Rester slept on the couch that night. He left music playing on the television. Quiet and deep and somber. Still, even behind Near’s closed door he can hear the music as he gets on his knees and pulls out his little wooden box beneath his bed. The one where he keeps his little treasures. He slips the little box between a similar shaped box and a pair of goggles and begins to close the top before pausing. He reaches for the other box, the first box, and removes it. It’s so old the velvet of it has been rubbed off and the metal hinges are rusted so that they squeak when it opens it.

Still, the little ring inside is as shiny and new as the day L had slipped it onto his child bride’s finger. He removes it and slips it onto his pinky, the only finger it now fits.

Near makes sure to sob as quietly as he possibly can into his flannel-covered knees so as to make sure his anguish is drowned out by the Christmas music coming from the other room.

**Author's Note:**

> I do plan to write more of this but I'm writing this when I should be doing homework so it won't be quick.


End file.
